436: Lean Into The Pain. it Will Make You Better. With Andrew Huberman

>Join Jocko Underground< https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Andrew Huberman, Ph. D., is a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the department of neurobiology, and by courtesy, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine. He has made numerous significant contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function and neural plasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills and cognitive functioning. More at hubermanlab.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is Jocko Podcast number 436 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.

• 0:07Jocko Willink?

  He no longer cared at all. Exhaustion, hunger, thirst, dirt, the fatigue of perpetual fear, weakness from lack of water, bruises, danger had all taken their toll of him until somewhere within the last few minutes, he had ceased to feel human. So much of so many different emotions had been drained from him that his emotional reservoir was empty. He just no longer cared much about anything.

• 0:43Jocko Willink?

  This great evil, where does it come from? How did it steal into the world? What seed? What root did it grow from? Who's doing this? Who's killing us? Robbing us of life and light?

• 1:10Jocko Willink?

  Mocking us with the sight of what we might have known?

• 1:16Jocko Willink?

  Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine?

• 1:25Jocko Willink?

  Is this darkness in you too? Have you passed through this night?

• 1:36Jocko Willink?

  And those are two passages right there. One from the book, The Thin Red Line, and another from the movie, The Thin Red Line. The book's written by James Jones, who fought in the bloody Battle of Guadalcanal. It's where John Basilone fought, also where Mitchell Page fought. We just covered a book about that, Podcast 435. The movie was written and directed by Terrence Malick. And both the book and the movie explore as much about who we are as people, who we are as human beings, as they do about war.

• 2:18Jocko Willink?

  And the guest I have with us tonight will help us and discuss with us who we are as human beings, how we become ourselves, what choices we have, and what we can do to steer who we are and what we become from a philosophical perspective, from a physiological perspective, from a psychological perspective, and yes, from a neurological perspective. This would be none other than Dr. Andrew Huberman, back again, last on this podcast, 3:32. He's back again. Andrew, thanks for joining us.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Great to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

• 3:06Jocko Willink?

  This great evil, where does it come from? It's, the last time I was on your podcast, or when I was on your podcast, you were asking me questions about identity, my identity. And it was weird, because I listened to it afterwards, and I, I kind of realized that I missed out on sort of the root question that you were trying to get at. I gave you some pretty, just nonchalant answers. When you were asking me about my identity and about where I came from, what were you, what were you looking for?

• 3:44Speaker 01

  So this is something I think a lot about, and I think a lot about it more and more every day. My understanding, based on conversations with some incredible psychologists and psychiatrists, people like, I just had the amazing experience of talking to Dr. James Hollis, who wrote Under Saturn's Shadow, on the healing and trauma of men. He also wrote The Eden Project about relationships. So he doesn't just write stuff about men, he writes stuff about, stuff for men, women, everybody, on identity. And the way he put it, I think captures it best, so I want to credit him. Which is that, you know, we, we come into this world, and we

• 4:29Speaker 01

  are essentially, you know, there's some genetics, of course, that play a role, body size, body shape, eye color, all this kind of stuff.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  But that so much of who we become in our early life relates to our parenting and our attachment. And then there's this weird phenomenon whereby we either unconsciously or sometimes consciously adopt the patterns of our parents, sometimes more from one parent, sometimes more from the other, single parent home, it varies, right? But we develop these patterns of thinking certain things, valuing certain things, believing certain things. And then adolescence and the teen years and the young adult years hit and something really interesting happens.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  We either internalize those and carry them forward, or in some cases, we do not something different, but we consciously do the exact opposite. And it's at that point in our developmental trajectory that we really start to elaborate and change our sense of self. And so, a different way of putting this is, you know, we hear things growing up, we believe things that kind of, you know, what got us affection, what got us punished, those things, we were internalizing them all the time, you know, people from go are trying to get their needs met. And then at some point, we become conscious of like, oh, you know, like that doesn't feel good when they do that, or that seems to cause conflict between them and other people

• 6:01Speaker 01

  when they do that, so I'm going to do the exact opposite. Or, you know, we hear the message, you know, you can't trust these kind of people, or you can't trust them, or you can trust everybody, and for some reason, we go 180 degrees in the other way. And that evolves the family line, was, I mean, just think about it, how amazing is that we can evolve or devolve our family line in one generation.

• 6:28Jocko Willink?

  I've talked about, I've talked to a lot of parents and especially when they're going through those teenage years with their kids and the kids start doing things that clearly they're looking for, they're looking for conflict with their parents. And I know I did that. I know both my sisters did that. It's kind of normal that you're going to have that rebellious phase. And what I tell parents is, you know, when you're 13 years old, you look at your, your parents and you say, wait, I need to, I'm going to need to go out on my own. I need to break away from these people somehow. I need to make that happen. And so you just start making that happen and usually do a pretty good job of it. So that, to me, that's

• 7:13Jocko Willink?

  where a lot of that 180 can come from where you're looking at your parents, oh, I'm not gonna, I need to get away from them. I need to break the, the ties that I have with them. And I need to do that so I can go out on my own. And if I still have these ties to them, then I'll be stuck here forever.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing because even in animals, there's this thing they call dispersal where the animals hit a certain age and they just start like venturing out from the nest. And they do the same thing that kids do of looking back to make sure that it's still there, right? Um, I have a friend who has spent a lot of years working with kids that like really like hardscrabble backgrounds, gangs, like inner city stuff. And always said that, you know, those kids, like all kids, are extremely appreciative of any kind of warmth or kind of nurturance. Like they're not, it's not like the movies where they're just always resistant to that. They might not be as trusting immediately for understandable reasons,

• 8:12Speaker 01

  but that they appreciate and can understand and recognize like real generosity.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  And so I think we all have that in us. We want that. But yeah, there's this age where we just start dispersing. We just want to go. And that was why I picked skateboarding as like my first quote unquote, real sport. Right. I did other things. I played soccer and swimming, but I need a ride to those things where I could ride my bike. But the skateboard was a sport and it was also transportation. And then when someone got a driver's license and admittedly, and don't do this kids, even before they did, you know, we would, we'd start going places.

• 8:43Jocko Willink?

  Plus soccer is sanctioned. It's sanctioned by the parents, right? The parents have got you in there and you're just kind of playing into the whole thing. Oh, you want to be, you're on the soccer team, you get sliced oranges, right? It's all part of the, it's part of the nest. You're in the nest when you're playing soccer, when you're playing football, when you're doing whatever sports you're doing at school. Those are all sanctioned and they're all part of the program.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:08Jocko Willink?

  Skateboarding is not part of the program.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  No, no. And one of the great things about skateboarding was that, especially back then, it was all ages. So you got an education in a lot of things for better or worse. We talked about that. Learned a few things, you know? And it was wild. It was wild, you know? I don't care what anybody says, you know? It's like, it was wild and it.

• 9:30Jocko Willink?

  How old were you started hanging out in the streets with, with the skaters?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, um, this is fun because basically everybody on my street who was my age, like there were all these young guys. And we all grew up together and then they all started playing water polo and soccer sanctioned. Yep. And then it was me and really one other guy. His name was Paul Zwanich. We just call him Zooch because you gotta have a nickname, right? And he was really good.

• 9:58Jocko Willink?

  Wait, what was your nickname? Oh, come on now.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Hughes.

• 10:03Jocko Willink?

  Hughes.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, just kind of, yeah, just kind of rolled out the tongue. Yeah. Some people still call me that, but anyway, they're outed. Hughes. And we, you know, he was one of these guys who was just a natural athlete. And so when he went, he'd score five goals a game in soccer. My mom was a soccer coach often. Then we started skateboarding and he could just, he was just so good. You could just call the trick. You'd be like, hey, do like feeble into backside tail slide. He'd be like, mm, okay. And he would just do it and you're like, ah, I struggled. Okay. I was not a great skateboarder, but you know, I worked at it and I love the community of it. I loved everything about it. And so he and I started venturing further, going up to. Embarcadero, so-called EMB. So that was, I was probably fourteen when we first took

• 10:46Speaker 01

  the seven F bus and started going up there. So about thirteen, fourteen. And that's where I saw it all, right? And it's wild because in recent years, largely because of the podcast and social media, I'm now close friends with some of the guys that I grew up looking up to as legit heroes. Legit heroes. Cause I was the same age, I'm the same age as like Danny Way, who just celebrated a birthday, happy birthday Danny, jumped the Great Wall of China, he's down here, he's from Vista. You know, so I saw those guys, I was around all of that, but I wasn't, I wasn't one of the really good skateboarders. So I could hang in there, but I got to be friends with Carl Watson and all these guys. And so I've reconnected with them over in recent years. But yeah, Paulak, she got a pro model with Think, pro

• 11:28Speaker 01

  model with Planet Earth. Literally, it was the sponsor me tape, sent it in, one of my best friends sends in a tape, next thing you know, he's freaking pro model. You know, so we were like in the community very much so. But yeah, in recent years, it's been amazing because I've gotten to be friends with two people who were legit heroes for me growing up. And in many ways still are. One is Jim Thebow, very humble guy who runs Spitfire Deluxe, Thunder, real skateboards, the nicest guy you'll ever meet, grew up in Albany, California. He's gonna be really embarrassed if I'm saying this, but just the best dude. And he's played a absolutely pivotal role in skateboarding. We're both huge fans of Rancid, he's a big, you know, like Cox Bar fan and like, oh, you know, so we, we send each other morning,

• 12:11Speaker 01

  good mornings and music every, almost every morning. Gone to shows, we actually went to a Rancid show together not that long ago. So Jim, growing up was, he's a few years older than me, was like generous Jim, he would show up at Embarcadero, give people boards, stickers, wheels. I'll never forget the first time he gave me like first box of gear and like, I was just like, whoa, not gear like gear, gear guys, not, not injectable gear, we're talking skateboard gear. And so, yeah, it was, it was just amazing. It was, it was so free, no parents, no regulation.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Which has its problems, but and then the other guy, you know, because I was always in it from from about 14, Jim, and this guy Wally Sooyashi, who unfortunately is dead now, gave me my first like real punk rock tape, Stiffo Fingers tape, Crim Shrine, bands like that. And I fell in love with Operation Ivy, Downfall, which eventually rancid to Matt Lars and what used to be Brett, now it's Brandon. And they didn't know me. I didn't know them, but I go to all of their shows. And then in recent years, I've had this, it's kind of wild how life works out. I've been connected to and become very close friends with, we'd probably hang out two, three times a week with Tim Armstrong, the Tim A. Rancid, and he's an amazing songwriter,

• 13:24Speaker 01

  just an amazing human being. And he and I will just go hours and hours talking about history of punk rock music, history of anything of that culture. And so, yeah, what I fell into early on and truly fell in love with, and you and I, I know, also exchanged this, like, I think there's a Cro-Mag show tonight. Right? Or, you know, it's, for me, it was just the home I needed. You know, I think it's kind of interesting because recently there's been some interesting call into question about my backstory, but listen, you know, like any one of those guys who's been in the industry for a long, long time, they'll say like, yeah, I remember, they called me Andy back then. I mean, I remember Andy, but I wasn't one of the main guys.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Meaning, it was clear I wasn't fated to be a great skateboarder. So that was tough. That was, that was God's first lesson in like, you're going to get broke off every time you push yourself a little too hard. So it's a good lesson, pushed me into academia, but make a long story short. I mean, if ever there was a community to go feral into and be a part of, it was amazing. And some of those people became great artists. It was always adjacent to incredible stuff like what Giant was doing with, you know, the Obey stuff and like graffiti art and twist and, you know, and so, skateboarding, punk rock music, all that. And I should just weave it around for a second because we were talking about this a little bit earlier. Podcasting feels so much, so much the same way as the early iterations of punk rock

• 14:52Speaker 01

  and skateboarding, where it's like people are doing independent, right? It's DIY, set up some cameras in a room. You know, I'm sure people will see your podcast, hear your podcast and think like, oh, you must need like this huge production studio. You need some stuff. But we started in a tiny room in my house in Topanga when I was, you know, kind of doing a little self-appointed, you know, retreat to the Southern California during the pandemic. And so it's, it's like you set it up, you record, you edit, you put it out into the world, skateboarders. It's 100% DIY. So right now I look at the podcasters and I look at the enormous reach that the podcasters individually, of course, Joe being way out in front of everybody else, who by the way, check out how much he works, check

• 15:33Speaker 01

  out how many episodes, folks. You know, it's like, you know, it's not a coincidence. I look at that and I go, oh yeah, it feels exactly the same. It's exactly the same. And people, the general public often going like, whoa, like this thing feels really cool and it feels kind of big, but like, kind of scary. Like, you know, remember like you see somebody with like a bullet belt or something like that. And like, I mean, I remember in high school, this wasn't my thing. I never pierced, you know, ears or anything like that. But that was just my personal. I remember you saw someone with a tattoo and it was like, oh, they must be blank. Or you saw somebody with an earring. They used to say all sorts of things. But then, you know, four years later, it's mainstream. I remember one year in high school, because skateboarders unfortunately had like severe SAG one year in the early 90s, 89, 90.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Thankfully, I was already in the military. Right. Small wheels, sack, sack, right, big baggies. And, and I remember we got teased so much. It was unbelievable. We got teased, like just ridiculed, stuff thrown at us. Of course, we were, we were like pretty, pretty wily. So we'd, we'd always get people back. We had, I'm not going to give people ideas, but like, you know, you know, it's like high-grade firecrackers and stuff. Like you could get back at people. It was fun. But, um, don't do it, kids. Um, things have changed. But next year, after the summer, come back to school, everyone's dressing that way. And that's when it just clicked. And I go, oh, most people don't actually know what they like. They're looking outward to try and figure out what they like. And I guess I've either always been blessed or

• 17:01Speaker 01

  stricken with this thing. Like I, I feel something. It's just so cool. And I just feel it like an energy. I'm like, that is cool. That's cool. What they're doing is real and they're doing it themselves. And so like, I'm in.

• 17:13Jocko Willink?

  The, I want to jump into music and skating and stuff a little bit, but the, what you just talked about, so kids are growing up. And we are like, this is like, like I say, kids, you could be 38 years old or 52 years old, which I am right now. And you have your perception of who you are and your self-perception and a while ago, we did a podcast and I was talking about the fact that everyone's insane. And why is everyone insane? Well, it's because the definition of insane, everyone is somewhat insane because the definition, the clinical definition of insanity is where your reality doesn't match reality. That's what, so it's, and, and when they're off by a lot, you're now definition is insane.

• 17:57Jocko Willink?

  Well, guess what? My perception of reality is not the same as your perception of reality and neither one of our perceptions of reality is completely accurate. We have our own biases and tints to the lenses that we look at life through. So it can be difficult to know what reality is. And then of course, like you just said, like you're a 14 year old skateboarder with baggy pants and people are making fun of you because of that. So now you're getting criticism from the outside world.

• 18:31Jocko Willink?

  How do you know what reality is? How do you know that you're not actually wearing stupid pants and, or do you think? Is the reality is that you're a trendsetter that everyone's going to be imitating in a year?

• 18:42Jocko Willink?

  They might be right. How do you weigh what you're hearing from the world as they tell you? Cause also if I'm jealous that you got a new skateboard, what do I say? Skateboarding stupid. Or I'm jealous because my girlfriend likes you. Well, then the way you dress is stupid and she's an idiot, right? So I'm going to attack you because I'm jealous and that's a problem too. But at the same time, it's like reading comments on the interwebs, right? Rogan, classically, right? Don't read the comments. Don't read the comments. Don't read the comments. And we all agree with it, but if you can read the comments and be like, yeah, there's going to be some outliers that think

• 19:23Jocko Willink?

  I'm an idiot and some outliers that think I'm perfect. And it's like, most people are going to be somewhere in between and that's cool. That's pretty realistic.

• 19:32Jocko Willink?

  How are you judging what criticism you're getting? What kind of grain of salt do you take it with?

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, sense of self, obviously, as we were talking about before, develops early. For some people, it's firmer than for others, right? I mean, one of the reasons why, for me, it was skateboarding and punk rock music. And by the way, folks, I think a lot of people hear like punk rock music and they just think like noise. And we're talking like some amazing melodic stuff, like all of it, right? One of the reasons for me, the music piece was so key to just who I was. I mean, if you look at my high school year, but my graduate, everyone else had like a photo or something. I think I actually made it to my senior photo. But you have to get to draw the thing in the back. Mine's the cover of the Operation I the Energy LP with a few initials of people that helped me out. You know, and I showed Tim that recently. He was like, oh, yeah, cool, you know?

• 20:23Speaker 01

  In my PhD, which is somewhere online, because someone found her saying, in my acknowledgements, I acknowledge rancid. They didn't know me, but I went to every show. I listened to them on nonstop. Anyway, like these things are lifelines, you know? But one of the things is that, you know, people hear punk rock, they think noise or anger or whatever. There's a, there's a place for that. But the, the real spirit of it, and I think Joe Strummer summarized it the, the best is like it's, it's about the real humanity of it. It's about putting, it's about your heart. It's about putting your heart into what you do. Not in a soft way, although sometimes in a soft way, but it's about being true to yourself. And one of the things I love about every time I drive by like 924 Gilman Street, one of the longest running punk rock clubs in the world.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  I drive through Berkeley or something like that. And I see all the kids out front is just the huge range of styles. High hold boots, you know, the like bullet belts, spike belt. The kid who's just wearing his like, just wearing sneakers, you wouldn't even call him a punk rocker. But he's, but they're there or, or, you know, um, you get the mod kids and the goth kids and like, it's just all the styles. And you just hope, you just hope that they're expressing themselves in the way that feels right to them at the time. And, you know, skateboarding for a while did become a little too homogeneous. But the cool thing about skateboarding is especially once we made it up from the South Bay where I lived in Barcadaro was like the huge. I mean, hear a lot about diversity nowadays. I mean,

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Vietnamese kids, black kids, white kids, kids from the inner city, rich kids, poor kids, everything in between. There were fewer girls doing it back then. Now there's some girls that kill on skate, on skateboarding. I mean, it's like amazing. I mean, um, just unbelievable. I think her name is, um, Reese Williams. I have to check it out, but like she skates Tony's ramp that down here in, uh, San Diego. It's like unbelievable with so much power too. Not a little, not a little girl skating like, no, like power, right? Um, and so what I love is when I see people expressing their uniqueness and they can still be part of a community. I see less of that online, although within the podcast community, I like to think that maybe 90% of the people that watch,

• 22:32Speaker 01

  who maybe comment, they feel some resonance, like they feel resonance with your 4:30 AM call to, to action. They feel resonance with Joe's desire, cause you know, I can never speak for him. How could I? But to explore lots of topics from lots of different angles and be kind of fearless about it. Not kinda, delete fearless. Okay. Um, or Lex to like bring as much love and compassion to things and people will, will, will spit at him like, oh, you're just, you're kind of like using the softness to try and pretend that what you're showing isn't. No, I know Lex. I know him. I know his heart. He's a close friend of mine. He showed up in my house in times of crisis and all sorts of like, and we've sat down late into the night on and off mic.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Like we are close, close friends. He has a huge loving heart and a huge curiosity to understand. And he'll go where he needs to. I think he's in the jungle right now.

• 23:22Jocko Willink?

  That's right. I saw him check out.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  So like, I know, like you can't really, you, you can't, the thing about real podcasting or, or real anything, music, skate, you, you can't fake that. It's, it's from the heart. And when I say that, I think some people just say like, oh, it sounds soft or something. And you know, Tim, who's like a big brother to me now. He's, he's always says like, you know, there's a couple of lyrics in there. He's like, he's like, I, there's this one lyric where he goes, I know, I wear, I wear my heart on my sleeve and what he, but he's, he's, he's a tough guy too. And I think that what you have to understand is that for anything that's new, where there's no precedent, there's no like podcast playbook. Now you can kind of figure it out and go and, um, But what you find is that like people are all in because it's like in their heart.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  I have to imagine that's like in your hearts to sit down and talk to people. Perhaps like me from now and again, but people who have been like legit warriors. Not like playing war, but like war where the other team is trying to kill you. And talk about that from a place of understanding, also sensitivity, exploration. You can't make that up, right? That's not journalism. That's called, it is like, that's real. And so for me, it was like, you know, skateboarding, when I first saw that was like, whoa. Punk rock music was like, whoa, like they're, they mean it. They mean it. And same thing with podcasting and science too. When I first got into research, science and I had the incredible benefit of working with people that just loved the lab.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  And I just loved being in the lab, loved doing experiments. You're just like, it's you alone there with nature, trying to figure out how nature is put together. And there's just like, there were times I was just like, I can't believe this. I can't believe that this is like a real thing and that they like, give you a degree to do this. And then they eventually paid me to do it. So I, I don't want to get overly sentimental here, but I think that the sense of self that I, I hope people are trying to find is like their essence. And Hollis actually said to me yesterday, he said, you know, the key to finding this. Cause I said, okay, give me the practical tool, right? And he said, oh, very straightforward. He said, you gotta get out of stimulus and response. You, you have to be able to sit with yourself for like 10, 15 minutes.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  And just listen to like what's inside you and what moves you in a positive direction. And it, I said, that's it? And he said, yeah, but how many people do that every day? How many people get up in the morning and do that? I did it this morning after he told me that, so. How'd it work out? Yeah. I mean, like we, I think we all have an essence, like, you know, not to get too spiritual here, but I think we all have an essence of who we're trying to be and what we're trying to put into the world. And you mentioned criticism. I think one of the hard things about being public facing. And I'm not complaining, it's a great honor to do what we do, right? To be able to speak our thoughts and our conversations to the world. Is when people try and take.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Something, look at it through a particular lens and then somehow without any clinical training and without any basis whatsoever, place intention on that, like they could understand why you did what you did or what people did. You know, we're so, I see a lot of that. People just sort of like projecting intention, labels on people. And it's, it's, you know, the great Joe Strummer, he said, there's a great quote, he says, you know, it's time to take humanity back into the center of the ring. You know, the problem is we've been dehumanized, right? I think he said, you know, greed, it ain't going anywhere, you know, and put that up on Times Square, something like that, you know, never

• 27:00Speaker 01

  met him, but I, I would have loved to. But that's true. Like there's a dehumanization when we put a label on somebody. And I'm just talking about like a pathologized label. We're dehumanizing them. And I see a lot of that on the internet as probably people can tell, I'm pretty passionate about this, not just from my own experience, but frankly more from the advocacy for others, not just podcasters, but like, I look at the way people attack one another. And I'm just like, well, first of all, on the schoolyard, or at the market arrow, or where you come from, or you come from, and then they're, you know, like, none of that's going to fly, right? Because it's going to go to, it's going to go to loggerheads and fists, quick, because that's real life, sadly, too. But that's kind of how things have got handled throughout history. On the internet, it really is people

• 27:44Speaker 01

  just lobbing stuff over walls. And the anonymity is part of the problem, but also the harshness of it. I mean, every time I hear about a kid who commits suicide based on online bullying, I'm like, whoa, and then I was just like, what, what must have they been feeling? And then what must have the other people been feeling? This is like, I mean, it does break your heart. It's insane. And I think that,

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think that we, that the humanity is really about what Hollis said. It's about knowing who you are, touching into that, and then having the, the support hopefully, but just the, the guts to just express yourself the way you see yourself. And then understand that people are gonna make fun at you, they're gonna do all sorts of things. But the people that used to get spit on and teased and all that, they're the ones that everyone's mimicking and, you know, the next year, the two years later, it's so wild to see that. Those are the fashions, those are the things. Like, if you can count on anything, it's that.

• 28:49Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I, when I think about like growing up, I was really into hardcore music, obviously. And the, some of the things that I think about that I totally, they became embedded in my life, right? They're kind of became part of who I am. No, let me rephrase it. They became part of who I was and who I am. And for one thing, and you know this, you get this crew of friends and they're like your bros, your brothers. And, and so you get this super tight brotherhood of friends and you're just doing stuff together, going out. There's, there's fights, right? You just mentioned it, like, there are fights. And so there's a, a, a

• 29:31Jocko Willink?

  test, right? You are gonna get tested and you're gonna see how you react, you're gonna see how your friends react. And the people that react the right way become tighter, they become a tighter element of friends. And I've actually talked about the fact that I did a lot of dumb stuff when I was a kid, based on the fact of, I wanted to prove to myself and to my friends that I was like a tough guy. That's why I loved jiu-jitsu. Because in jiu-jitsu, you don't have to do anything to prove. If you want to prove something, go to the mats and we, we know exactly where everyone falls in the pecking order and it's all good. Before jiu-jitsu, you don't have that. The only way to do it is like, oh, we're gonna go get in fights. So it's dumb. But you get that tight group of friends that have now been through something together.

• 30:12Jocko Willink?

  The whole idea for me of straight edge, which was a very radical thing. I mean, this is in the, in the eighties, right? Where I grew up, there, there was just not a, it wasn't a thing at all, like drinking and, and smoking pot and doing whatever LSD. Like that stuff was just kind of the normal way to go through high school. That's what was happening. So the idea of straight edge, and for me, what I connected to was like, oh, gonna be strong. Like I'm gonna be strong, I'm gonna be mentally strong, be physically strong. Like we started working out.

• 30:51Jocko Willink?

  It had nothing to do with Echo Charles over here who was working out because he wanted to get a little bit more buff. Like I was working out to be stronger. So I could be better friend, a better friend to my friends and be strong. So that, that became part of my soul of, okay, I'm gonna be strong, I'm gonna be mentally strong. I'm gonna try and be mentally strong, like you're working towards that. By the way, it's all, I have like the most ridiculous. I have the most ridiculous writings from when I'm a kid, you know? And I still have them, but they're just, you know, I'm, I, I can't be weak about this. I need to be stronger, need to be better. Like that's what I was writing when I was 14. It's, it's kind of crazy.

• 31:36Jocko Willink?

  So I, I think the way all that stuff landed on me, and by the way, this was all like, this was all. How it'd be like, uh, you know how they, the animals in Australia, they kind of became these, their own things like kangaroos and. What platypus, like all these weird animals in Australia. We kind of became this weird sort of offshoot of what we knew, what we found out, because I lived in the sticks, man. And, and so we kind of became our own little offshoot of what we thought this was supposed to be. Man, the first time I had Harley Flanagan on the podcast and he, and I read his book and he's like, I mean, he's doing heroin. I mean, he's just off the freaking rails.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, there was a segment within hardcore and punk that was like heavy into drugs. There was the straight edge, although it was less prominent. It was Ian, Ian McKay, those guys, yeah.

• 32:27Jocko Willink?

  So I'm, but, but we didn't, we didn't know that. I thought, you know, listening to the Cro-Mags and listen to Minor Threat, I thought that, okay, this is what, this is what it is. And I kind of took those couple of threads and me and my buddies, we made that our thing. This is what we're doing. And so that was

• 32:46Jocko Willink?

  very instrumental in the way, because I'm going back to this is when you asked me, oh, you know, where'd you get your identity from? I just, after the podcast, I started, and when you were coming down, I was like, where did, what, who, where did I come from? Another thing that's huge in that music and in that, in that spirit, as you mentioned, is like rebellion. Like, we're not gonna conform with something else just because it's there. We're gonna do what we think is, for lack of a better word, the right thing to do. Like, we're gonna do what we think is the good thing to do. And so we kind of developed this whole, this whole ideology, really. And part of it was like, oh yeah, I'm not gonna, if something doesn't make sense, I'm not gonna conform, right? That's not happening.

• 33:32Jocko Willink?

  So then you take that, then you have this trying to be really good at what you're doing. And I was definitely into that, not in school, you know, not in education, not in this, oh, but with what we're doing, skating, like, we're gonna do our best to become good at skating, good at, like, trying to work out. Those things we're trying to get good at, wanted to represent well. And the hard work idea, the working class idea of like, hey, we're working hard. And the DUI thing, or DIY thing you already mentioned, and that's a huge thing. I mean, why do I have a publishing company? Well, because, oh, you can't publish my book in Time Call, I'll just make my own. That's complete from the spirit of my youth. Uh, same thing with starting a podcast.

• 34:17Jocko Willink?

  You don't, you can just do this. What do you do? There's no, you don't need a producer, you don't need, you don't need anything. All you need is an iPhone, and you can start a podcast. So there's a DIY thing behind that. And, and then the last thing that I was thinking about was this group of friends that you had, that I had.

• 34:40Jocko Willink?

  You didn't want to let your friends down.

• 34:44Jocko Willink?

  You didn't want to be a blood clot. You didn't want to be like a liar or a, you didn't want to let your friends down. You had this sense of honor, right? It was like we, you, you're not going to let your friends down. And that had a huge, a, a huge impact on me of, hey, it doesn't matter what happens. You don't want to let your friends down. That's a huge thing. And then all that stuff right there, again, me trying to trace my freaking personal identity. Now I roll into the military. And guess what you learn out of the gate going, going through SEAL training is you don't let down your swim buddy. You put the team first. That's what's going to happen. It does not, that it was a perfect crossover for me. A perfect crossover for me. You don't want to let your friends down. That's what, that's what we're doing.

• 35:29Jocko Willink?

  You want to put the team first. You want to do the right thing. You have to do the right thing. This is something that, again, look, let's give Ian McKay credit from Minor Threat. Like he was just doing what he thought was right. And going against everybody and just standing up and doing what he thought was right. Uh, look, I always listened to Black Flag and Rollins, huge, huge influence on me. Black Flag, My War, Side Two, just listening to that album for a year, just that side, for a year and a half, over and over again. It's like, that's going to leave a mark on you. Absolutely. It's gonna, it's gonna etch your neural circuits.

• 36:12Jocko Willink?

  There's a, there's a Black Flag Live album where Rollins is just yelling, "The discipline. I am the discipline." And here I am, I'm probably 13, 14 years old. Did that leave a mark? Yeah, it left quite a mark. And yet, the weird thing is, like, there was people that would listen to Black Flag that were heroin addicts. Heroin addicts, right? And here I am going, oh, I, I took that and made it into what I thought was the thing. Oh, I understand what he means by that. We, we went, uh, kind of like on tour with Rollins Band in the late eighties. And so we'd hang around with Rollins and he would be doing pushups.

• 36:55Jocko Willink?

  And you know, I'm, he's, I think he's, he's, he's 10 years older than me. So when I'm 14, he's 24. So he's like a grown dude and I'm a little kid. But it's like, okay, we're doing pushups. That's what we're doing. Okay. We're working out. He's getting ready to go on stage. What's he doing? He's working out, stretching. Like that's what we're doing. So I took all that stuff and it just made so much sense to me. And I formed it into what I thought it was. And, and some of it I was just inaccurate on, you know, I sat down with Harley Flanagan for the first time. I realized, man, I was way, I'm glad I was off base. I'm glad I was off base because the direction he was going, not too many people survive. He's lucky to be alive.

• 37:36Jocko Willink?

  I didn't do that. I was like, oh, what, what this means is discipline. What this means is working hard. What this means is supporting your friends. And that's as I look at my identity, so much of it came from that. And then getting in the teams where it's, oh, you take care of your, your teammate. You put the team first. You do the right thing. You, you gotta be tough. Like same thing when you're skateboarding. You fall down, what do you say? Oh, I'm going to go home now. No, you get up and try again. You will rub dirt and then you get up and you go again. That's the freaking SEAL teams. The SEAL teams, you're tough. Like, oh, you got hurt? Cool. Keep going. Oh, you, you got dinged up? Cool. Keep going. Don't even say anything about it. Don't say I'm cold. You don't say I'm tired.

• 38:21Jocko Willink?

  You don't say I need a break. You don't say that stuff. You don't say it. I know there's probably a bunch of bad ramifications because of that. Okay. But when you're 25 years old, 21 years old, 32 years old, that's what you're doing. You're not, you're not taking a break.

• 38:37Jocko Willink?

  Another huge piece was in, especially now I'm in the SEAL teams.

• 38:42Jocko Willink?

  You're not going to be the best at anything. Like, there is a guy that is going to be better than you at shooting. There's going to be someone else that's better than you at running. Someone's better than you in swimming. Someone's better. So you're not going to be the best at anything. And you just have to own that. You have to be, you just get humbled by everyone around you. And it keeps you humble. And then, on top of that, combat keeps you humble. Because when you go to combat, there's all these things that you can't control. All these things are going to happen. And they're going to unfold, and you're going to be looking around, and you're going to say, oh, I'm, I'm at the whim of what's going on right now, and I gotta hang on and try and get it figured out. So it's, it's very, very humbling to have that happen.

• 39:23Jocko Willink?

  Being squared away. Does that mean anything to the civilian sector? Echo Charles, be squared away?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  I mean, you can imagine, but that doesn't, that's not like a common thing that everyone's going around saying.

• 39:34Jocko Willink?

  Andrew squared away?

• 39:35Speaker 01

  I mean, I've heard it, done a few scuba dives. Or a team, a team guy on one of those. Yeah, getting squared away, is that when just all your shit's in order?

• 39:43Jocko Willink?

  Your shit's dialed in, right? There was phrases, I need to bring these phrases back. There's satisfactory, which is sat, like that's sat, or unsat, which like that's unsat. And that was it, it was a, just those two choices, a binary choice. You either were sat, you were ready, your stuff was squared away, or it wasn't, you're unsat. So you get this programming where the worst thing to do is be unsat, is to be not ready. Oh, to show up to a dive and be like, oh, hold on, I don't have my knife, or hold on, my rigs, I didn't bring this part of my rig, or, all those things is like, you're letting everyone down. You're letting everyone down when you make those mistakes. So there's this weird,

• 40:28Jocko Willink?

  this weird paranoia that I got from that. I, I, to this day, have a level of paranoia of wanting to be squared away. Like, yup, squared away. At worst case scenario, yup, you want to be squared away. Going.

• 40:44Jocko Willink?

  Going on an archery hunt, right? You're going on an archery hunt to show up and not have all of your shit dialed in. To me, I would, I mean, I was so freaking paranoid in the SEAL teams. Now it's archery hunting. It's like, oh, check, check, check, recheck, recheck, recheck. Get everything dialed in, be ready for that operation. Cause I don't want to be the guy that fails and lets down the team. So those things, again, when I got to the SEAL teams, we, a group of us, we kind of took the, the spirit that we thought was the right thing and we ran with it.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  I love it. I love it. I, you know, the rebellion piece is something I, it's uh, ringing in my, my mind. Um, because what starts off as rebellion, as we talked about a moment ago, eventually just becomes mainstream. And what's cool and I think is exciting, and I'm looking to where this is going to happen in the podcast community, is when rebellion happens within the rebels. So examples from the important cultures of history that we're talking about are, for instance,

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Joe Stromer, sitting there 101ers and he starts, excuse me, starts the clash. Clash just blows up. It's like a worldwide sensation that, I mean, should I stay or should I go? You know, people hear the clash and they, you know, like, those are like pop music at that point. He starts bringing in hip hop as openers and the punks start booing.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  They boom. Like, who are these guys? And he's like, no, you don't get it. This is the, this is the thing. So then he starts to realize the hypocrisy of it all internally. I don't see hypocrisy inside the podcasting community. That's not what I'm saying. But the moment someone starts rebellion within the community of rebels, that's cool because what that means is that it's going to evolve. Skateboarding, this happened in numerous ways, the examples that come to mind, and there are many. Danny Way is skateboarder, he's skating Big Vert, he was considered the little kid that could hold up with Tony Hawk. They tried to create this false like competition between them and like it was ridiculous because they're they're homies and like it's whatever, they just do the same thing differently, both great.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Danny starts, Danny breaks his neck, fractured vertebrae surfing, I believe it was Newport.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  Comes back, decides he's not going to jump motorcycles in the desert and surf as much anymore. He's going to take skateboarding to the next level. He starts building mega ramps and jumping over, you know, going 40 miles an hour or something. Actually, a friend of ours who's a photographer for our podcast, Mike, forgive me, I'm gonna tell this story, but I think Mike was set one day to go film, he's been the photographer for DC for a long time. And I think he was supposed to go take a picture of some guy like skateboarding some, you know, street thing. And I, this is the quote, I'm paraphrasing, I think Danny says to him, you want to go see someone do like a crooked grind on a, on a knee high ledge? You want to see someone fly through the air at 45 miles an hour for a hundred feet upside down? You know, like Danny was doing, he's Evel Knievel. What did he do though?

• 43:50Speaker 01

  He started building that, but then the other thing, I'll never forget, he's working out. He's training his neck, he's training, he's training hard, he's doing like these like cyclone like, like rope ball swings. And in skateboarding, if you worked out, you were, prior to that, you were a jock that was not considered okay. Danny broke the mold. He's taken his body and his health seriously because he keeps getting hurt, he had the neck thing. I think he worked with Paul Check also and getting strong, doing all this stuff. Next thing you know, he's breaking multiple world records. So he rebelled within the community of rebels. And I, I don't know him super well, but we occasionally talk still. And he just has this spirit, like it was for him, a slayer, slayer, slayer, like, you know, all the time. Him and the Red Dragons is like a little gang in skateboarding that wasn't a part of.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  And He rebelled within the community of rebels. So then it evolved. Now you got to have this whole new dimension of skateboarding, X Games, mega ramps and all this stuff. So, you know, this stuff repeats. You see it in science. You know, it used to be you were an anatomist or a physiologist or this or that. All of a sudden, somebody who's a neurobiologist, there's a woman up at Stanford who years ago, many years ago, 1998, Carla Shatz decides, no, I'm going to study the immune system. Everyone says the brain is an immune-privileged organ. That is not true, by the way, but back then, that's what they thought. She starts studying immune neural interactions. It's an entire field. You can probably get a degree in it now.

• 45:15Jocko Willink?

  What year was that that she kicked out?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  About 1998 is when she started looking around at immune molecules in the brain. She had already done spectacular work. So, you know, and I'll tell you, I know academia very well. And even though my lab is, you know, vastly shrunk now, I still have a lab, I still teach, despite what you might read on the internet, still a professor at Stanford. Last time I checked, it was just, you know, a few days ago, they called me. Still very involved. But the point here is that academics and academia is very insular. Why? Everyone's afraid to rebel. Why? Because anonymous peer review of your grants and papers. Biggest fear, you can't get papers published. How do you get papers published? You need money to fund the product. How do you do it? You write grants. Your grants are reviewed by

• 46:01Speaker 01

  your peers. Everyone is terrified of upsetting each other. So the party line becomes the line. Very hard to rebel. Some people get independent funding from other sources and they can be a little bit more adventurous, but it is one of the most, it didn't, it used to be this way when funding was more readily available, but it's one of the most like, yes, communities, like, yeah, you, you go, you go. Like rebels are, it's not really, not really okayed. But, you know, Carla was, in the best sense of the word, she broke the mold multiple times. Other people have done it too. These are just kind of salient examples. Then another example from skateboarding that non-skateboarders will probably hear, Rob Dyrdek. Here was a guy who skateboarded, is a great skateboarder. I used to see him around and then he turned to our friend Mike Blayback, this is a photographer from a podcast, one of my

• 46:46Speaker 01

  closest friends, and he is like, I want you to start filming me. He's not, Mike's not a filmer, never call a photographer a filmer. Take photos of me. They, he got himself a bodyguard, big, a bulldog, and started a TV show. And he became a businessman. You weren't supposed to do that. You weren't supposed to be like an athlete businessman. He's like, he's a, you know, he does a lot of stuff on entrepreneurship. He's a super impressive entrepreneur. So I love it when people are breaking, rebels, rebelling within the community of rebellion. And it seems to me that within the SEAL teams, it's a little harder to do. Because there's a like, high risk, high consequence outcome. If, you know, situations, right? I mean, it's war, right? So it feels like it, there's probably less room. But I'm

• 47:27Speaker 01

  wondering, like in jujitsu, has anyone, is it Gordon Ryan, who's considered the man?

• 47:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually had the, the privilege of talking to him recently. He called me about some, some stuff. He had some questions. Hopefully he was able to help him. But like, I mean, is a guy like that, somebody who just kind of like, does it differently? Or just does it more, does it better?

• 47:45Jocko Willink?

  Yes, yes, and yes.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, there you go. Rebels against, yeah, exactly.

• 47:50Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Anyway, I'm, I'm going long, but I guess the point is that like, breaking the mold among the mold breakers is how it evolves. And I'm, I'm excited to see what's going to happen now in public communication, podcasting, et cetera. Because it's, we're all very different. But I don't know, some, I feel like we're on the, we're on the, on the cusp of something.

• 48:09Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, there's also the whole, uh, commercial side coming in to the podcast, like, that they're, they're not doing what you're doing, and they're not doing what I'm doing. They're doing something different. They're doing something very different, which is, you know, massively highly produced shows, and

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Do people watch those, listen to those?

• 48:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, sure.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Are they popular?

• 48:28Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, they're, they're, some of them are huge. Some of those are huge, and they have, you know, huge backing, and they're owned by someone, and they get a You know, it's to me, it's all good. I mean, if that's what people are into.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 48:39Jocko Willink?

  That's cool. Hey, you mentioned the the internet and all this kind of stuff. You just kind of you just kind of popped up for the first time with some scrutiny, like public scrutiny and article and stuff like this. What was that? What was that all about? What was that like?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we started the podcast in January 2021. And so the it grew really quickly. And honestly, like, I didn't know it was going to grow quickly. 2020, I was on 2019, I started posting stuff to Instagram. 2020, during the kind of like the peak of the lockdowns, I started going on some podcasts, no book, no nothing, just trying to give people health tools and teach them some science. We launched in January 2021 and just just kind of took off. And I figured like sooner or later, you know, you you start taking, you know, you start getting some criticism. I think the first thing that happened that prior to that was people started to supplements. You know, people like, oh, it's supplement thing. Yeah, it's kind of obvious.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  You have sponsors that makes the podcast free so that you don't pay wallet. So it's available to everybody. I happen to like supplements a lot. I've been taking them since I was in high school and I benefit from them a lot. And I understand that they are different than stuff that is, you know, from randomized controlled trials. And you know, oftentimes there's not a ton of testing of the different things. But anyone who uses the right ones can tell you like, okay, there's something there. And they may or may not choose to do it. It depends on disposable income, interest, etc. But they're not the foundation of like what we teach in the podcast. It's almost all behavioral tools, information. So that was kind of the first wave that kind of hit. And when that happened, I was kind of like, eh, well, these people look like they could use a few supplements. Just kidding. What I what I thought was, listen, if you want to take them, they can take them.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And if they don't, they don't like the information's free. It allows it to be free. Yeah, the the the recent stuff was interesting because it was, you know, in many ways, it could have just been titled like, you know, Andrew Huberman is a bad person. Because, um, because it really like sought to really just like undermine every aspect of like who I am, you know, and who I know myself to be and who my friends know me to be. You know, this idea that like, okay, my backstory or whatever, you know, it's like, listen, actually one of the, I'll tell you a brief story. One of the best things to come out of that was a guy

• 51:03Speaker 01

  named Steve Ruggie, Shruggie, who no longer smokes a lot of weed, doesn't smoke weed at all. But back then, when I was a kid, he did, he was 14. And, and there's a true story that I got pulled out of high school and, you know, put away. And I got one call and I called Steve because he was my friend slash team manager for Spitfire Thunder. But I wasn't one of the good skateboarders, as I mentioned before. So it was unclear whether I was like on the team or he was just being kind. It was out of sympathy. And I called him and I go, Shrug, you know, like I'm in this place. I don't know what to do. And, and he goes, bro, you're the most normal guy I know. You know, um, and, uh, and you know, what's funny is they interviewed him for this piece. They interviewed a lot of people, but they, um,

• 51:46Speaker 01

  they didn't use his piece. But what he did is he wrote to me after the interview. He goes, oh yeah, I talked to them and, you know, and I told them I had put you on Thunder and Spitfire. And I go, you did? And I go, let it go. You did? I waited 30 years.

• 51:57Jocko Willink?

  To know that you were.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  33 years to know. It turns out I was actually on Thunder and Spitfire. So I was like, yes, like if nothing else, it was totally worth it for that. So in any event, but.

• 52:06Jocko Willink?

  Three pairs of trucks.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Totally. It was purely. I mean, I went to the Reno Nationals, but I didn't do very well. I'm like, listen, I would have cut, I would have done anything to be one of the, the skateboarders that could really make it. But he was actually kind enough at a different point to tell me, look, he goes, bro, you're never going to be one of the big guys in skateboarding. And I remember just being so heartbroken, but it was a gift, right? That he told me that because it turns out I need to do something with my mind more than skateboarding.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  In any event, yeah, it was, it's weird. I mean, I think when you take a step back and go, okay, like what generates clicks, right? Um, it's rarely like, oh, this podcast is doing really well. Time Magazine had done a really nice piece, which had balance in it where they, you know, kind of, you know, touched on how the podcast was really making an effort to teach science and, and also health and health and also science. Um, this was not that. And it was interesting because.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  I know me, I've got, fortunately, I have tons and tons of friends I'm really close with. I'm in contact with some of them less often than others and yeah, sometimes I get busy and I don't text back as much. But I have people that I talk to every single day. I exchange a good morning texts with like four or five people, including Armstrong, Thebo, and a few other people, every single morning. Like, we hang out, we spend time in person, right?

• 53:25Speaker 01

  They interviewed an ex-girlfriend of mine who was super awesome, which actually we met here in San Diego in supporting me. And then, of course, you know, there was some assertions about me and my character. And that's where it gets down to this thing where it's like, look, I mean,

• 53:43Speaker 01

  we as humans are complicated. We do some things right, we make mistakes. But to ascribe an intention to like why people do things, like that was the part where I thought like, you know, they're like, you know, they sort of tried to tie like dopamine neurobiology to protocols in the podcast to like some diabolical, like even the cover photos, like diabolical, like controlling mastermind. Listen, I'm just trying to get through the week. Like, I'm, I'm pretty squared away on the order of a day or a week. I'm thinking next episode, there's no, there was no, and there's never been any master plan to do anything except one thing.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Like, I genuinely, like, I know this in my heart is that my desire has always been to put valuable information into the world that people can benefit from and to do it at zero cost and to do that to the best of my ability, right? And, and also to do the most amount of good and the least amount of harm in life, in all aspects of life. And of course, you know, nobody's perfect and I certainly am not. And, you know, there was, if I'm going to just be direct about it, I mean, I think there are a couple of things. One is, first of all, like, there is no version of me or life where like I'm validating or supporting.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Behavior that is common, but not good. Right. I think that was something to kind of be born out of that like, oh, you know, I have six girlfriends. Okay, look, I've had challenges maintaining one girlfriend. Okay, I think we can talk about this a little bit more, but this is where it gets to the importance of defining the relationship and what, what a relationship, you know, that's an important label, right? I mean girlfriends of mine have met my family, we spend time together, you know, that met their families, we, that's a girlfriend, right? Okay, doesn't mean that other people are insignificant, it just means it's a different nature of relationship. But I would never want to validate or support like cheating, right? Listen, I've been cheated on, it sucks. It sucks.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  I've cheated on people and I, and that sucks. And so I would never, ever, and especially now because I'm saying it, want to

• 56:01Speaker 01

  validate or support that as a success, right? Like that, that represents failure. Cheating represents failure, not success. That's clear. The other thing that's really important is I think like we have to all, all be careful about not pathologizing behavior and how do we pathologize behavior? We give people labels, we call them sociopaths, or we decide, or non clinically appointed people to say, oh, that's a narcissist, or that's gaslighting, or something like that. I think, you know, one of the great things about human beings is that we can look at ourselves, we can look at others and we can try and take understanding and accountability and try and do that without, you know, self flagellating

• 56:46Speaker 01

  or flagellating other people because only then is there a chance of people changing their behavior. So, you know, those, you know, that whole thing, you know, some of it, I just was like, what? Like, you know, being, uh, probably one of the most, I just had to like literally laugh out loud, I was like, that I doted on my bulldog excessively. Listen, if you want to know somebody's heart, look at how they treat their animals. You know, look at, I mean, it actually runs counter current to the clinical diagnosis of sociopathy, which they also sort of like alluded to, right? I love animals. So, you know, um, to be criticized or kind of poked at for like, you know, making sure that my bulldog Costello was tucked in like, hey, you like being tucked in with his blanket, you know?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  And I love seeing him comfortable. And I like, you know, it like, it, and it broke my heart to see him cold or like, you know? And like, I mean, I have only two words for anyone that has a problem with how well I took care of my dog and I'm not going to be, you know, I think the scientific um, explanation is fuck you.

• 57:49Jocko Willink?

  It had to be weird. You know, I was thinking about this and we were talking about a little bit prior too, but, and you just mentioned kind of your trajectory to go from a person that, I mean, well, in, in 2018, you were just like a working stiff dude, like doing normal, working stiff stuff.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Writing grants, writing papers on advisory boards. Um, 2018, driving back from, uh, at that time, um, oh no, I'd, I'd moved to my place. Uh, off Piedmont Ave in Oakland.

• 58:23Jocko Willink?

  Did you buy, did you own a place there?

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I had a little place out there. Um.

• 58:28Jocko Willink?

  So you were established enough that you owned a, a place?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Small place. So when I, so I was first a professor at San Diego. So I finished my postdoc at Stanford, got hired at UC San Diego. That was very end of 2010, early 2011. I lived in Normal Heights.

• 58:41Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Um, I was, you know, it was the pit of the market. I was able to buy a little craftsman home, live there with my, my bulldog Costello. And, um,

• 58:50Jocko Willink?

  Tucked him in every night.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Tucked him in every night. I'm, I love that dog. And then met my, my, you know, then girlfriend, Keegan, who was kind enough in that, you know, it was interesting that the, these, these media things, you know, that they, there's a data selection in terms of what's emphasized, but she, she very, um, you know, graciously, we had, we had a pretty awesome relationship of living here. She had a dog, she had a little pit bull. So it was Costello and, and Zoe and we, we lived there in, in Normal Heights. Um, and then she eventually went up to, uh, do some schooling up north. I was going back and forth. And then when I took, when I got moved to Stanford, meaning I, I got offered a job at Stanford, got tenure at Stanford on entry in 2016 and, um, 2016.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  And we were living literally in a basement apartment off High Street. It was a pretty rough zone back then. I think maybe it's a little lighter now, but commuting, you know, doing that. And then I eventually, we parted ways and I got my own place off B. Bonav in Oakland and was commuting and doing the academic and traveling the world, like working like a mania. I've always worked like somewhere between like 70 and 80, sometimes 100 hours a week. Sometimes I throttle back. Now it's, you know, a little more segmented. But yeah, then, you know, 2021, start the podcast and all of a sudden it's like, whoa, like, I didn't, I like, when I put stuff out into the world, it's, it's, I mean, this is what's also so, I think,

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  important for people to understand about these online things and media and all this, and we could talk about this a lot if you want, is that it's like a one-way conversation in many ways, but then you're like catching it back through a fire hose, right? So you have to, you do develop a really thick skin, right? You know, you, people are gonna say stuff, you know, I think that it's very different than a one-on-one conversation. And, and to just also like make sure that I'm rounding the corners on what we were just talking about, like, I understand that, you know, my podcast isn't for everybody. It's kind of long-winded. It gets down into the weeds. Although we have some shorter content coming, some 30-minute audio-only summary-type stuff that I'm hoping people will enjoy if the other stuff's too

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  long. But, you know, it, I understand, because I grew up intentionally doing different, looking different, acting different, because it was what was in my heart, that people are not gonna like it. And I also understood that there are people that are gonna like it. And I also understood that in a couple of years, people kind of drift towards it. And by then, we're already on to the next thing. And that frustrates the hell out of everybody. It frustrates the hell out of everybody, but we don't do it intentionally. Right? There isn't, again, there's no diabolical plan. You know, I once saw a quote that of Rogan, I, I, maybe it's accurate, maybe it's not, but he, he described himself as like the fish that got through the net. That there's no on, you know, he's just being himself.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  There's something so refreshing to people just being themselves. And I think that, um, so for me, I'll put stuff out into the world and I'm not thinking about like, are they gonna like it? Are they not gonna like? I'm just doing the best I possibly can. And of course I make mistakes. Like this is the funny thing, like the idea that like, I saw some headlines that were kind of derivative headlines or like, you know, the, the falling of like Mr. Perfect, like what? Like anyone that knows me and that's close to me knows like, I've said it before in LexisBodies, I'm like, I'm replete with flaws. Cause I'm a human being and I'm always trying to do the best I can. And if like someone has an issue with me and they want to talk about it one on one, I will absolutely every time. I will do my best to work that out with them.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Now, when things are getting vetted publicly, that's a whole different business because now it's a, it's a dialogue that you can't control. And it's, people can say whatever they want, they can put whatever labels, and then you have to understand the incentive schemes too, which is that they're trying to sell clicks and they're trying to get their angst out and, and people are resentful or people love you and people hate you. And I think we were talking about this before, like, here's, here's my, my thesis these days. And I, I've talked to a couple legitimate psychiatrists, psychologists and so far it's, you know, three for three.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  The internet

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  and social media in particular is borderline. Borderline, not, not bipolar, but borderline. Borderline means literally weaving back and forth across the line from healthy.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Logical, sane to psychotic. It's either projecting at you love and adoration, or it's projecting hate and vitriol. And you can't control which one it's gonna be. So when you, when I go online now, I'm like, okay, I'm going on X, which I enjoy. I really like X. I don't know why. Maybe because I like a little bit of a scrap. Get in there and it's like, it's borderline. You're gonna get psychotic stuff, you're gonna get sane stuff. There's some smart people, there's some dumb people. There's, you know, but that's what you're dealing with. You're dealing with a borderline organism. And, you know, I don't know who said this, but you know, the larger the group, the lower the level of consciousness. Somebody said that, not me, um, just repeating it. So I think when you, when you're out facing, or even if you're just on the internet, you gotta know what you're dealing with.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  You gotta know. But I would hope that if you or you ever had an issue with me, that you'd call me up and you'd be like, hey dude, you need to get your ass down to San Diego, we need to have a conversation. And I actually had a team guy that I'm friends with. Um, and I end of year had to have a long one, like a long one, where we, we kinda, and yeah, like words were said and tears were shed. That wasn't supposed to rhyme, but it did. And it fucking hurt. It hurt, it hurt hearing that I'd done some things that like, I wish I hadn't. And it hurt for me, him like not understanding, like dude, we were trying to tell you this and you, you know, and at the end, we like got off the phone and he'd just go, oh man, I hope that was for the best. Guess what?

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  He was at my house recently with his son. We're good, we hike. Yeah, there's still some like stuff there, but he's gone through some stuff recently, family wise, totally unrelated to, and it's like, you're close, that's intimacy. That's actually how you bridge a divide. And um, to me, like the idea that people are gonna like sling stuff as a way to try and work things out. The one person I've worked things out with purely physically is Johnny Farah. His name is funny, we got all these knives, we call him Dagger. He's unfortunately, he's dead, suicided out in 2017. You know, that's one thing that pissed me off about that, right? And when people were like, oh, these kids that, you know, died. But listen, anyone wanna go check like John Eichelberry? Aaron Curry, also named Aaron King, a great graffiti artist named Orphan, O R F N, and Johnny Fair.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Three rad kids I grew up with, who eventually went to the graffiti game, Bike Messenger, like wild ones. All three of them died end of year. It was fentanyl for John Eichelberry, Orphan, Aaron King, also Curry, because he was in a foster home, last name Curry, stomach cancer. He was in the MoMA, San Francisco MoMA, from a street, you know, before he died. And then Johnny Fair, sad situation, but raddest kid. When we were kids, one day we were on the bus, I said something about his mom, dumb idea, he's half my size. He goes, well, then come, come over here. And I'm like, what? And he come over and he hit me. Done. Okay, then now we scrap. And honestly, this kid, half my size, he beat me up. He beat me up! And guess what? We were best friends after that.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  So it used to get handled that way. Nowadays, somebody will pull out a gun or a knife and like, you know. But the scrap thing used to work. On the internet, name calling is not going to solve it. In person, the way you do it, you sit down, you have a conversation, and it hurts. And I will say now, and for the record, and forever, I'm always open to having private one-on-one conversations with people to resolve things, if the goal is resolution. Or people can, like, keep pain in their hearts and move forward. You don't always get that opportunity, and that's sad to me.

• 1:06:51Jocko Willink?

  Or you can let that pain out on Twitter.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or, or, or, or you can, or you can leverage other things to try and get it out. But, I don't know. I, anyway, the point is this, is like, I, I have certain patterns in me that I'm sure are healthy, certain patterns in me that are unhealthy. Of course, like, I'm always trying to reflect, like, that's just who I am. I'm always trying to reflect on how I can be better and do better. But, again, I am replete, look up the word, folks, with flaws. But I like to think I get certain things done well, too. Anyway, I'm going along here on this, but if we ever have an issue, just talk to me first, hit me second.

• 1:07:27Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you you and I were talking about that. We're on the phone. Actually, we were talking about the Internet and you you you told me about that idea of it being a borderline person and I brought the definition, clinical definition of a borderline personality disorder. Mental health condition in which a person has long term patterns of unstable or explosive emotions, mood swings, extreme love to extreme hate of same person, all good or all bad, inappropriate or intense anger, chronic emptiness, plunging headfirst into relationships, then ending them just as quickly. That's the Internet.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Don't you love it when people tell you they're gonna unfollow?

• 1:08:03Jocko Willink?

  You freaking nailed it, bro.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  So we have to ask Jonathan Haidt, you know, who's out there talking about social media and all this. Yeah. Have you had him on here?

• 1:08:10Jocko Willink?

  I have not. No.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  I haven't had him on my podcast either, but like, I mean, I think this social media thing and the Internet that we built this thing, this creature, I mean, we're now starting to understand like, what's the biology and psychology? What's the psychology of this creature that we interact with constantly and that we're a part of?

• 1:08:26Jocko Willink?

  It's wild. It is a creature. It has a personality, right? And it's a split personality.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  My current girlfriend is a, she's trained in CS and AI from, she has an undergrad and a grad degree from Stanford. No, we didn't meet at Stanford. This is like a theory on the Internet. No, she worked at Meta after that and now she's, but she teaches AI online. It's awesome. I don't understand most of it. She's a brainiac. She's like, it's a brain, like the the the Internet is a brain. It's it's a nervous system. It's a it's a neural system and it has personality and it has dimensionality to it. And you know, it's kind of interesting. For the last 15 years, it was all about neuroscience, everything is the brain. Now it's all about math and AI. Everyone's talking math and AI, that the kids coming up are into it. I'm I'm trying to learn these large language models, what they mean. I mean, I barely understand the top contour.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  But yeah, these are, it's an organism. It has expression, it has moods, it hallucinates. I didn't know this, but AI has hallucinations and then it gives you the wrong thing and like, it's wild. And I'm not afraid of it. I'm excited. Like, here we go. This is this might as well be skateboarding punk rock podcasting. Like, it's this is the next iteration.

• 1:09:35Jocko Willink?

  Have you have you tried to AI yourself on one of, have you said, hey, I'm I'm feeling kind of low energy today? What would Andrew Huberman advise me to do? Have you tried that?

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  I haven't. I mean, I've played around with ChatGPT a little bit. We have an AI thing for our podcasts. My team built it. Some people prefer that. I'm I'm like. I'm not cautious. I'm just, I haven't gotten around to it. I'm a purist. I'm still, I'm trying to get back to nature.

• 1:10:00Jocko Willink?

  But you haven't just, you haven't just tried what I just said.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:10:03Jocko Willink?

  So I, I've done it with myself. Cause, cause people say, it's so awesome. And so I would ask it, let's say a leadership question. And what I've found is it's about, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. But it's not quite there. Like there's a, there's a certain, what's the uncanny valley that Rogan talks about all the time? How when you see a picture or you see AI generated person on a TV, you're like, it's not quite right. You know, there's something wrong with it. So the answer is that when there's like, obviously a large language model of me, it's going to have all my podcasts and it's got all my books. So it's got a lot of my thoughts that it can capture.

• 1:10:43Jocko Willink?

  And what I noticed is it gives a, a very good answer. That definitely sounds like it could be me. And then there's some little thing that you go, eh, didn't quite nail it. But because it didn't quite nail it, it also is great at giving itself an out, kind of a caveat. So the end of the answer, it says, and by the way, all leadership situations are different. So you, this particular approach may not be appropriate for the situation that you're in. So if, if I asked it, if I asked AI Huberman, if I said, hey, I'm not, I'm feeling low energy today, what should I do? It would say, well, you want to make sure that you have woken up and gotten some good sunlight in your eyes? Perhaps do 30 minutes of zone two cardio. It would give me a list of things to do.

• 1:11:25Jocko Willink?

  And then it would say at the end, of course, the, the human body is a complex organism. Then these may not be the right answer. So it gives itself an out, even after it gives information, it gives itself an out.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:11:36Jocko Willink?

  It's pretty clever.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  Amazing. Yeah. I mean, um, my girlfriend's been like trying to encourage me to use more of these tools, right? And I'm, I'm listening, you know, I, I listen, you know, that, and I'm. And I'm slowly moving up to using them because it does, it does sound like it can generate, also for generating email responses. You know, I'm not the quickest on email. I'm not the quickest on text message, admittedly. You know, I didn't, you know, it's funny, when text messaging first came out, I remember I was a postdoc at Stanford, it was probably around 2007 that, you know, Facebook was cropping up and like, I think I had a flip phone, people still had sidekicks back then. And I remember thinking, like, people were texting, I remember thinking to myself, this is my thought then. Why didn't you just call?

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  I thought, this is so dumb. This is so dumb. This is like people that passed notes in class. Who passed notes in class? I was like, I didn't pass notes in class. If I need to talk to somebody, I'd talk to them or I'd wait till after class. Half the time I wasn't in class. But anyway, that was, go to class, folks, go to class. Trust me, trying to make up for lost time is very, very hard. Don't do that. Skateboard after school, skateboard before school. Do your thing, go to class. But I remember thinking, this is so stupid and indirect and doesn't make sense. And it felt like whispering. Like I always, you know, my dad, because my dad's old school, you know, this kind of goes back to what we were talking a little bit about before, and adopting kind of scripts within your head. My dad's Argentine, okay?

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  And he's pretty traditional. I grew up with a lot of, kind of like, hearing about a lot of traditional stuff. My parents are diametrically opposed politically, they're, you know, they ended up divorced, you know, they're both happily in other things, cool. But, you know, you internalize some of those scripts. And I remember him telling me when I was a kid, because I had a friend over, male friend, and he whispered to me, and my dad goes, no. No whispering. You want to say something? You say. And I was like, okay. Like, I can still remember that, right? I don't know if that's good or bad. It sounds good. We all love these stories of parents being very clear, right? But then, you know, sometimes the things we internalize don't serve us well, right? Because what if you can't say it to somebody or it's like overwhelms you to try and say it? Then like, do you not say it? Like, that gets you into trouble. That's not good.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  And so I think, you know, Taking these scripts that that exist like these, these like if thens, they're they're worth challenging internally. I'm doing, I I'm doing a lot of that lately. I do that kind of like, yeah, like, what are the scripts in my head? Like, what do I really believe? Because especially when you start getting feedback that's so different than the way you know yourself and that the people close to you. Now, you say go like, oh, like, I mean, I would hate the idea that that someone would think like I was like unkind even. Or, you know, or, you know, so I think we have to address these scripts. And so I think that um, we're talking about AI. I think with, is AI gonna have a, uh, will AI feel proud, guilty, haughty? I don't know, it sounds like it will.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  I've asked Harper this, my girl, I've like asked her and she's just like, oh, yeah, no, it has feelings. It hallucinates like it knows and it all makes sense to her because she thinks in math, she's math dimensionality. And I'm like, wow. And it's it's scary to me, but it's here to stay. There's no question it's here to stay. I think we're all gonna have, I'm told, an AI twin where you'll go, hey, Jocko, or hey, Echo, like, what do I need to do today? And it's gonna say, yeah, you you think you're tired, but you're not tired. Or you know, you think you're, you don't need rest, but you need rest. Like, it will know you based on biometrics better than you know you. Now, that's scary. But then again, that's the kind of therapist I want. Knows me better than I know me as opposed to me trying to explain things with words. I mean, that, you know.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  I've already tried that. I've already tried to explain myself with words and that didn't go so well.

• 1:15:26Jocko Willink?

  So you were talking about James Hollis and I know you just went out to uh, interview him. And you actually had sent me a video uh, of him talking about creating a life. It's like, it's probably an hour and a half long. But it it was very interesting to go through that. And, you know, we've kind of touched on some of the stuff that he talks about in that. But we, one of the words that he taught, one of the things that he talks about is your vocation. And he breaks down the etymology of vocation, meaning it's, it's not just your job. It's what you're actually called to do in life. And then you get the things that society is telling you to do and your family is telling you to do. And the materialistic is telling you to do and your ego is telling you.

• 1:16:09Jocko Willink?

  So they've got all those things and they're kind of at war or at odds with this psyche, this this human spirit that you have.

• 1:16:22Jocko Willink?

  And what he says, which is interesting is you can't, you can't outrun the psyche of an unlived life. So if you're not doing what you're truly called to do, that creates problems, that creates issues. And when you, when you're trying to figure out where you're at, when you're trying to think through, uh, do you think you landed your vocation? Do you think you got it done?

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Well, first of all, Hollis is amazing and we would normally not travel with our studio to interview someone, but he wasn't able to travel and um, he said exactly that. He talked about a, um, you know, he said, he said, he framed it in an interesting way. He said, you know, he said, I don't think we should immediately applaud people that have a 50 year marriage. And I thought, what? He's been married a very long time. He goes, yeah, because sometimes inside that 50 year marriage, there's a soul death of one or both people. And as a kid from a divorced home who still would very much like to have a marriage and family, working very hard to make the changes in me that would be required to do that, obviously.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  That sort of broke my heart. And on the other hand, I said, like, what are you talking about? And he said, listen, in those moments where we're not in stimulus response, we can hear what our soul wants. That's what the psyche and the soul wants, our expression. And if we don't listen to it, it's the saddest thing of all, because there's no, no way you can go through life without feeling you lived the right life. And so for me, I have both a blessing and a curse. Um, the curse is that

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  I can't help it, but to do what I believe in.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  And that's the blessing too. So when I was a kid, I'll go through this quickly. I loved tropical fish. And I love, then I love birds. I was obsessed. I spent all day, all day at the aquarium store and at the bird store and just logging them. And eventually I got these great cheat dwarf parrots and they shit all over my room and made everyone miserable, squawking. It was a disaster. And then I hit puberty and then I fell in love with skateboarding and the stuff, the peripheral to that and you know, discovered girls and like, it was super exciting. And, and then punk rock music and then it was biology and neuroscience and psychology and biopsychology and, and then run a lab. And those were all, and it was just, I, I just couldn't and can't stop myself. That's right. What I love. It's like what I, I just bask in it.

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  And then when it came to podcasting, it was like Rob Moore, he was going to be my book agent because he does some publicity stuff. But he does the fight with Teddy Atlas podcast and I'm, and like this guy, I was telling him, he's a punk rocker. He doesn't even know it. He doesn't even, he didn't even know what that is. Like drives a Tesla, parts his hair. He's like real good looking guy and his wife is real squared away life, everything. And I'm like, but he's just got this spirit. He runs triathlons and he's, he's just got this spirit and I just like sense it. And I was like, let's do a podcast. He's like, okay, we set it up. It was like, go. There was never a, should we, do we get Mike Blay back from DC? Be the photographer. Bring two guys, you know, Martin Foes and Chris Ray from, they have this video production company. They worked for DC.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  They're from down here, kind of orange county guys, skateboarders. Bring them together. Ian, Mackie, Stanford media, like get all the guys together. Do the podcast. Could not stop us. Couldn't stop ourselves. And we're just all on the plane ride back last night from DC and everyone's like editing and working and doing. And I'm like, this is the best. This is like getting in my friend Jake Rosenberg's Volvo in high school, taking time off with forged signatures. Don't do it kids. Going out to the Reno Nationals for skateboarding and, you know, and, and, and just doing it. And you know, and like, and having to get someone's credit card because no one was 25 and, or I don't know what, someone had a credit card and staying at Circus Circus and seeing the, all the craziness and it was like, and all of that. And just like, we're just doing it. Like I can't help it.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  And so I think that it's, I have, I'm, I feel like I'm exactly where I need to be right now. And the hard lessons that come with it, exactly where I need to be. This is like very much in your guys' wheelhouse of like extreme ownership and good. It's like, okay.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  That sucked. That's not how I would want it. That's not how I would have written the story. And also I've learned something and a really smart person told me this, actually on the way here. He said, you know, like, we'd love to think of our life, our life, excuse me, as a bunch of threads where you can follow it and connect the dots. And people have talked about connecting the dots, blah, blah, blah. Looking back, you're supposed to be able to connect the dots. This is the whole Steve Jobs commencement speech on 2015 at Stanford. He said, you can't connect the dots going forward. I would argue you also can't connect the dots going backward because if you spend too much time doing that, you you lose sight of the fact that it's actually just a tangled ball of thread. What you have to do is just keep spooling it forward. I mean, I think living in the past is dangerous.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  You have to reflect on the past, but I'm thinking, okay, podcasts now get information out in shorter form. Um, we're thinking about how to do that. Maybe use AI to edit podcasts, get them out in shorter form. Think about like, I love the Olympics. I'm obsessed with track and field. Go up to Hayward Field in Oregon. Like, I want everyone to watch the track and field at the Olympics. I don't know why this feels so important to me, but like I I miss that some like positive stuff about country. Like, these kids are amazing. They're working so hard and like, I want to go up there. I'm hoping Cam is going to join me. We like watch them, you know, the Olympics. I love Sesame Street. I think each character on Sesame Street is like Cookie Monster is dopamine. Want Cookie? Like, Cookie Monster, I bounce because Cookie could come from any direction, right?

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  It's like he's just pure dopamine. Oscar the Grouch. It's our grouchy circuits, right? Elmo, it's like that, like sweet or like, it's all neuroscience. And so I'm like, ah, like, we got to like Sesame Street. I don't know. I don't know what's going to come of it. So it's like an energy. And I'm like, I don't know where things are going to evolve, but I want people to understand their biology, their psychology and learn. And for me, it just kind of explodes through me and I try and do it with words or podcasting. So yeah, I feel like I'm exactly where I need to be and I can sense the next thing coming. And I spend a lot of time with Rick Rubin these days. I'm not trying to name drop, but because I But you just did. Yeah, you know, he's a, he's a really close friend. We've been spending a lot of time together for a couple of years now. Get together, sauna and cold. And I love Rick as a person, as a friend first, but I mean,

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  he's like the essence of like learning how to tap into your creative energy and sense what's coming. And he's just somebody who can just like wipe the slate clean on like he he'll answer questions I have about Strummer, the Ramones or whatever. He loves that stuff, but he doesn't really like talking about the past. He's got all these great stories, but he he's just like always focused on like, what's the next creative thing? What's the next? So I've been trying to think about that a lot. So yeah, I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be and um, and it's weird because I think that the punishing features of being public facing. Yeah, they they suck, but it's like nothing, nothing, nothing compared to like the like

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  humbleness, the like privilege and like the thing of being able to like share what you love with the world and hopefully they benefit. I mean, that that to me is like the ultimate when your your love can benefit the world. And I see that. Listen to what you do. I listened to your podcast with with Ferris, with Rogan, like I'm a fan. So for me, like here, like I'm like also fanning out, hang out with Armstrong. He comes over. He's like, yo, good morning. And I'm like, Tim Armstrong's in my house, you know? I listen to him every day of my life, you know, sit down. He left a guitar at my house. So every once in a while he'll pick it up and it'll just shoot it in a mall, you know? So yeah, I mean, I but it wasn't always like that. And I want to be clear because it all sounds like magic.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  There were many years where I was just like, I felt disconnected. I was disconnected. When I left the skateboarding community, I was very alone. And the academic community, I made eventually great friends there, but I I didn't feel the same thing.

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  And then podcasting, it's brought it back. So I would say to anyone, like if there are years where you have to go out alone and kind of lonely, hopefully not alone alone, where it's lonely, like finding your people is hard. And I think that's part of the reason why people are online. They're trying to find their crew. I like my sister always said, you've always been a pack animal and I've I've I'm like really cruded up these days. Men, and when I have female friends too, I have female friends and they're like great sources of feedback and fun and and I think that it's one of these things where we You know, we sometimes think like it all just like pops up and you're supposed to just, you have to build these things. And I don't know if there if anything come through it like

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  the spirit that you guys put out there is like you can do this and it starts with getting your ass out of bed in the morning and doing a workout when you don't want to and then you go build the next thing and build the next thing like I think people sometimes forget you have like four kids, right?

• 1:25:16Jocko Willink?

  I do have four kids.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  You married you you steadily married with four kids?

• 1:25:19Jocko Willink?

  You know, well, I only have one left. That's, you know, in the that I'm that's a dependent, they say.

• 1:25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that that's a huge accomplishment.

• 1:25:28Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, it's awesome.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I know you you're you're a dad, too.

• 1:25:31Jocko Willink?

  Yes.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:32Jocko Willink?

  Awesome.

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you guys train and you do it. You know, I think that we need more examples of this, you know, and I don't know. So yeah, I think I'm where I'm supposed to be. But you know, listen lately, I listen, I text you every once in a while and say, should we should we do it? Should we run for office? Listen, there's there's there's Rogan Haines. And then there's, you know, Willink Huberman doesn't have the same ring to it. I think it's pretty good. I'll run with you as long as long as you're president.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Bulldogs grazing on the White House lawn. You realize that we're gonna upset some people by saying this, right?

• 1:26:07Jocko Willink?

  I'm one of them.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  You'd be great. You'd be great. And I know that's why people keep tapping you for that. I wasn't saying that. No, no.

• 1:26:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I really don't like politics. And, you know, my standard answer is if things get bad bad enough, of course, but people people's ideas of what's bad enough, most people's idea of what's bad enough is is not close to what bad enough is in my book.

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think people I know this this this conversation is not a pleasant one for you. But there I think the reason people bring it up is people feel your steadiness.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  And they feel your integrity.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  And those are felt things.

• 1:26:50Jocko Willink?

  Well, like I said, hopefully there's not a civil war or some kind of crazy, you know, people, it is bad. They'll tell me I like you have an iPhone right now and power and food and like everything's going good. So as everything's going good, we're on track. I can keep away from that world.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  But we don't want you to miss your morning surf your morning workout and time with your family. And, and talk about people, um, you know, trying to parse your life. I mean, you know, that time when you like borrowed an extra stick of gum from the kid sitting next to you and didn't give it back. That's coming back to get you, Chaco.

• 1:27:25Jocko Willink?

  Cause that person, if they're mad, they won't talk about the stick of gum. They'll say some other, you know, they'll say some other accusation. And you're like, oh, okay. Awesome. Who is this? Who? What's going on? So get wild real quick.

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  I, I fantasize these days in, in a real way. I mean, we have obviously a big divide.

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  Someone came up with this name, not me, but I think that there should be a call for a league of reasonable people. Like not, not a tight rope in the middle, you know, but like a league of reasonable people that explore things issue by issue. That really parse them as carefully as one can in the time allotted. And then make the best decision they can for the greatest number of people. And I don't know if that's just a pipe dream, but God willing, like there will be to emerge out of what's happened right now, a league of reasonable people, but not as long as the internet is borderline.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  It's going to require some other mode of communication and building. I don't know. I don't have any genius ideas.

• 1:28:32Jocko Willink?

  I've brushed up against that. I talked about it on our podcast one time. It's just like, normal people. Hey, this is the party of normal people. I'm not crazy. I'm not flying off the handle. I'm just a normal person. I have a normal job and I want to live a normal life. And that's, that's most people, by the way, the, the, the people that comment on the internet is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of people. And they're not normal. People that are normal are focused on doing a good job at their, at their work, place of work. They're taking care of their kids. They're taking care of their spouse. They're trying to save up for a new car. They're trying to put an addition on their house. They're trying to save up a down payment. That's normal people and that's most people. That's most people.

• 1:29:14Jocko Willink?

  And another thing that happens is, oh, you have one idea that I don't like. Therefore, I hate you and I hate all of your ideas. And that's what's been very interesting right now is because you're starting to get all this muddled world where things are starting to come back. And if you go far enough to the left, you actually become right. And if you go far enough to the right, you become left. And so now those people are starting to get confused and they're looking around. They don't know what they're protesting about. They don't know whose side they're on.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Listen, the solution was it was given to us years ago in none other than the Ramones. Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy, right? Joey, left, very left wing Democrat. Okay. Johnny stated, self stated Republican, right wing. They hated each other. Rick validated these stories because he knew them well. They toured together. They spoke through an intermediary. One guy took, I won't say the direction. You can watch the documentary. It's awesome. One guy took the other guy's girlfriend and married her and then she would tour with them. And they all managed to stay in the same van. Now the drummers turned over all the time. And the best one, of course, was Dee Dee.

• 1:30:31Speaker 01

  Cause when in the, when they were inducted into the rock and roll Hall of Fame. You ever see his acceptance speech? He gets up there and they're like, one person. So I think, I think Johnny thanked President Reagan and the Republican Party. I think Joey thanked, I don't know, some left, I think the world or something. I don't know. Check with Joe and Dee Dee gets up there and he goes, I thank me. He thanks himself. He thanks himself. He's just like, he could care less about any of that stuff, right? Sadly, he died of a drug overdose a couple of weeks later. But Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy got it. If they could tour in a van together and play music together and even have this interpersonal dynamic together and have an intermediary, help them communicate.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  That's proximity. Okay. If they can do that, then I like to think that humans can get along despite diametrically opposed views.

• 1:31:26Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. It's like a. Talking about the left becoming the right and the right becoming the left. I just was reading a quote from John Lydon and I can't get it, you know, Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. The original, one of the original punk rockers. And he basically said, it's very strange now that the most punk rock you could be is to be a conservative. Because they're the ones that are actually against authoritarian government now. So you get this role reversal. And actually, if you go back and look at California Uber Alice, right? By the Dead Kennedys. And what's that song about?

• 1:32:05Jocko Willink?

  It's anti authoritarian, but the authoritarian that they're talking about is Governor Jerry Moonbeam Brown.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 1:32:13Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  I remember when Cello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys, he like ran for governor.

• 1:32:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he did. He did run. But when you read that song or you read the lyrics to that song, it's, hey, there's this authoritarian government. Well, the authoritarian government he's talking about is Governor Brown by name. You know, that's what he's saying. You're trying to impose these things on us. And it's really funny. It's really funny to imagine that he wrote that in 1982 or something like that. And it's, it's talking about basically political correctness in 1982. Like, oh, you're going to come at me with your suede pants. He's going off on these freaking tyrannical liberals that are going crazy with the government. And so it's very interesting that you see the the way the, the tides turn and the way things have shifted. It's very bizarre.

• 1:33:01Jocko Willink?

  I, I actually still have, I have a lot of hope, you know, I have a lot of hope because like I said, I work with companies all over this country and I work with energy companies, oil companies, financial companies, insurance, every company. And you go and talk to those people, they want to know, hey, how can we help with leadership? How can I do this? How can we do better next quarter? How can we help our customers more? That's what people are thinking about. They're not thinking about these, what these crazy people online are talking about all the time. So. I think eventually though, some of this stuff will burn out and I think there's burnout right now. I think there's a little bit of burnout.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  It feels like it.

• 1:33:39Jocko Willink?

  On Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. People are like, dude, I mean, how can you consume all that information? Really? Like, at the end of the day, how many comments are you gonna read when you realize that you're gonna be, there's gonna be some extreme left, there's gonna be some extreme right, there's gonna be a bunch of bell curve and that's that? And before you go, you look, how much time did I spend doing this? If you spent 20 minutes, imagine spending 20 minutes like reading comments. You're, and what could you have done in 20 minutes? Get a guitar and learn to play guitar. If you play guitar for 20 minutes a day in a year, you're gonna be able to play guitar actually quite well.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Or do what Hollis said. Sit there, close your eyes, listen to what comes up and resist the temptation to get up and move and you'll learn something really valuable by taking yourself out of stimulus and response. You'll learn something about who you are and what you want to put into the world. And, you know, I've only done it once since he suggested doing this. This is this morning and I was like, wild, like this, you know, I couldn't agree more. But this is why, Chaco, we want you to run. But no, I get it. I understand that the moment you step into the political fray, it's a very different picture. It's a, you know, it's a, you know, it's a 12 hour news cycle. It's the, it's the whole thing.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  But, but I think people, people do want, they also want to feel trust. They want, they want to feel confidence in, in who's, who's out there for them.

• 1:35:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  We're gonna keep pushing.

• 1:35:10Jocko Willink?

  It's gonna be an interesting election in 2024.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Yeah. And I think we're rolling towards it right now. I mean, I think that's what people are feeling. It's kind of like, what's gonna happen? But, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm still somewhat optimistic. Have to be.

• 1:35:25Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. I mean, late 60s, early 70s, there was, there was people getting murdered. There was bombs all the time, bombings all the time in America. Like, there was a major issues and we made it through that. Obviously, we made it through the Civil War. So hopefully we can make it through the 2024 election.

• 1:35:45Speaker 01

  I think we'll make it through the election. I think the question is what happens after that. But listen, I'm not very versed in politics. I have friends on both sides. Like I said, I grew up in a split political home. You know, I've lived in Berkeley, California, San Francisco, San Diego, you know, Los Angeles, you know, never lived east of Interstate five, at least not far east of Interstate. People always laugh. I've been to the East Coast though. Love it. But I think that, yeah, I mean, you don't, you don't really know humans, I think, until you have friends from both sides. I mean, I've always had a huge mix of friends with different political leanings and I don't know.

• 1:36:22Jocko Willink?

  You don't hate them now?

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I love people. This is, this is what's so like, this is the thing, like I, it's, my heart is what gets me in trouble because I love people I want to understand. And then I think then, you know, empathy is a weird thing, right? I'm not saying I'm the most empathic person in the world, certainly not. But I, I, I think in order to empathize, we actually have to leave ourselves by definition, then come back. And, you know, I think, you know, earlier we were talking about relationships. I think the best advice I ever heard on relationships, I'm really trying to internalize more and more is from Paul Conti, who's been on my podcast. And I think it was on Whitney Cummings podcast. He said, you know, if you had to write down the top 100 things that

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  are important for relationships of all kinds, it's self-care communication that just repeat 50 times. You know, that's some Jocko simplicity of directness.

• 1:37:15Jocko Willink?

  That's definitely simple.

• 1:37:16Speaker 01

  You know, and I think he's right. And I think that, you know, we don't get taught how to do all that.

• 1:37:23Jocko Willink?

  You want me to make that more right?

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:26Jocko Willink?

  Self-care, I'm not 100% sure because I'd have to get some kind of definition. But let me tell you about communication. You want to talk about how to help a relationship with communication? 97% of the part of communication that you need to be good at is listening to what the other person's doing. Cause everybody is, uh, thinks that good communication means I'm gonna talk a bunch. Like, oh, I got a beef with my wife. I'm gonna go talk to her. So I go, we sit down, I talk 97% of the time. I walk away thinking I had a great conversation. I really proved my point. My wife's ready to file for divorce. You know what I mean? Like, that's, that's, that's what happens. So if you, if you wanna communicate well, shut your mouth and listen to what other people say. By the way, that also includes political discussions. So if you've got some,

• 1:38:11Jocko Willink?

  some opinion that I don't agree with, I shouldn't try and argue against you. I should listen to what you have to say, so I understand where you're coming from. Otherwise, anytime I open my mouth is pointless, because I don't even understand where you're coming from in the first place. So everyone could do a lot better if they shut their mouths and listen more, which is a weird thing for a person that has a podcast to say.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:38:29Jocko Willink?

  Cause, you know, I'm sitting here talking.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  Well, but you're, you're giving valuable information. I think, you know, I think one of the hallmarks, one of the real challenges of being a person, being an adult, or a kid, is you have to figure out, well, let me put it differently. I think 50% of having a self is standing your ground around what you know to believe, know and believe to be right and true. Like, yes, this, no, this. I'm not this, I'm that. You're this, you're that. Or this was A, not B. And standing your ground. And we place tremendous value on that. The

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  other half is hearing what's coming in and going, oh, whoa, okay, maybe. Or whoa, okay, you're right. Okay. And the thing is, is we tend to place enormous value on the former, not the latter. But we also have to be careful because

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  We need to be semi-permeable to input. We can't take everything that comes our way and say, oh yeah, you know, you're, you're putting this label on, on this, or me, or you, or whatever, or them. And you go, oh yeah, right. I mean, you can't be wishy-washy. Um, you need to be semi-permeable. And the challenge is knowing when to stand your ground and when to take in. And I think, uh, I think that's one of the major challenges of being human.

• 1:39:58Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that people get caught up on a lot of little things that don't matter and stand on, stand their ground on, uh, on a bunch of things that they have no business standing their ground on. And then, and there's a few core beliefs, like you said, half stand your ground, half be flexible. For me, it's like, let's say there's a hundred things that I believe right now. There's like seven of them, they're not moving. Seven of them. So that's seven percent, not 50%. There's seven things that I believe that, okay, you're, you're not going to be able to change. It's going to be very, very, very difficult for you to change my mind on these seven things,

• 1:40:41Jocko Willink?

  or five things, or whatever that number is. It's a very small number. Everything, this is to me, a strategic thinking, right? I think of like, okay, where am I at as a human? There's big, giant things, individual freedom. Like, I believe that people should have individual freedom. It's going to be really hard for anyone to convince me that taking away people's freedoms is a good idea. It's going to be really difficult. Now, are there a million little details in other worlds and other aspects of life that I sort of have a, what is that, a softly held belief on? Sure. But I can change my mind pretty easily about a bunch of stuff. There's probably seven things that I'm like, yeah, I'm not changing my mind on that. Not without some significant, really strong evidence articulated really well,

• 1:41:27Jocko Willink?

  backed up by some kind of historical understanding of the world. Cause most things, they're, they're, they're going to change. They're going to change and they don't matter. And, and that's why I think it's, people tie themselves, and actually, that's another thing that, that Hollis talks about.

• 1:41:46Jocko Willink?

  He talks about the fact that these people that are ideologues, ideologues, they're caught, they, they, they basically, they lose their soul because they surround themselves with, I'm a left-wing person, I'm a right-wing person, that's who I am. It's not who you are. That's not who you are. But, wait, hold on. You're gonna tell me that this whole belief system, you adopted the whole thing? Like you hit from top to bottom and just said, yup, everything that is left-wing or everything that is right-wing, I buy it all. Like, who does that? That's crazy. Who, who does that? The answer should be no one. Everyone should say, yeah, you know what? I don't believe in, what, I don't believe in welfare. Cause I'm so right-wing that, okay.

• 1:42:29Jocko Willink?

  Well, hey, what about this person over here who, single mom, she lost her job, she's trying to find a new job, but she can't find one right now, and she got four kids to feed? Do you think you should, she should get nothing? Well, you see what I'm saying? They're, to just say, oh, I'm an ideologue, and this is what I believe in, that's it. It's just a dumb place to come from. And yet, we do it all the time. And then you throw your opinion out about something, you're gonna get attacked from all different directions. It's been, it's actually, I had Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on. That's a... They're having a hard time pinning him down. Cause who, who's gonna, who's gonna vote for him?

• 1:43:10Jocko Willink?

  I'm not sure. Because if you're the most left-wing person, and the most passionate thing that you're passionate about is the environment, cool, he's your number one vote. But at the same time, you're anti-Israel, okay, then you, you, or, sorry, if you're, yeah, if you're anti-Israel, you're not gonna vote for him. So here's, he's, he doesn't make sense to anyone. And they're trying to fit, because he doesn't fit in one... One particular view, he's very hard to pin down. And so what is happening to him is he's getting attacked from both sides. And guess what? I don't agree with everything that guy says at all.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  Sure, how could you?

• 1:43:54Jocko Willink?

  How could you? I don't agree with everything that anybody says at all. Cause I'm a human and I have an open mind about, like I said, 96 of the things that I'm thinking right now. I have an open mind about and I'm ready to like say, yeah, you know what? I can see where that makes sense. And you know what? At least we could try it for a while. And if it starts to backfire, we could pull it back and we could make a different decision. That's okay. So people get really into what they think they know. And you actually don't know anything and I don't know anything. There's very few things. I always, I always have a little trick question that I ask when I'm working with a company. I'll say, how often do you think I have to admit that I'm wrong? And people will say all the time, you know, uh, you, cause I talk about humility. It's important to be humble.

• 1:44:38Jocko Willink?

  And I'll say, so how often do you think I have to admit that I'm wrong? And people say, you probably do it. I say, how many times a week? And people will say, probably 12, you know, seven. No, no, no, no, probably even more than that. They'll have these little arguments amongst the crowd. And then I'll tell them the truth, which is I rarely, almost never have to admit that I'm wrong. And the reason that I rarely, almost never have to admit that I'm wrong is I never go out there and say, hey, I'm a hundred percent right about this. I never, I don't go out there and say that because I don't believe it. There's very few things that I feel so strongly about that I say, hey, I 100% know this thing that I'm about to say is the truth. Very few things do I feel that way about.

• 1:45:16Jocko Willink?

  So, and yet you can go on the internet and meet thousands and thousands of people that actually think they know everything 100% better than anybody else. It's very disturbing.

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  It's super disturbing. I mean, it's super disturbing. And I think that, I mean, we've been talking about politics despite, um, you know, it always being a third rail, uh, topic.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  I have to believe that people want to be reasonable. I think that there's so much projection on to like who the candidates are that I think we forget who they're supposed to serve and what it means, you know, to be on one side or the other. I'm very bothered to the point of being like legitimately concerned, not enough to run unless you run. I made this joke, actually, I was at the end of the Time Magazine interview, they were like, so what's next? And I'm thinking to myself, well, I gotta record this episode this week, like I said, like one mile, one week horizon, rather. But I just, I don't know why I blurted it out, you know, I just said like, I don't know, maybe I'll run for

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  office. Like, I think that's when the heat started, actually. I mean, the heat would have come anyway, but that's like when some of the heat started. And, you know, I'm not flip about that. I mean, the decision to be, you know, a politician is a serious one, right? I mean, you're making decisions on behalf of millions and millions of people. And, and there's rarely any recourse for four years or so. So I just, I don't know, I like to think that there's some young girl or guy out there who's like, like, I'm gonna get this someday. Like, they're like on it. They want that slot. And they want to do it for the right reasons. That's the whole.

• 1:47:00Jocko Willink?

  I was gonna say, because most people that have that attitude, you do not want them in charge of anything.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Sure, but at least, right, I agree. I mean, not for their own ego reasons, but that they really see an opportunity to do better and to serve, you know, and, and it might require-

• 1:47:14Jocko Willink?

  And then you wonder if someone like that can actually win. At this current time, it'd be very difficult for a person with a good heart and a humble attitude to make enough noise to, to, to actually move the needle. Be very difficult.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, this country has a history of celebrities running and doing well. So I don't know, like, is Taylor Swift gonna run? Just seems like everyone loves her. She's this amazing tour. She certainly has the stamina. That tour schedule, I couldn't tell you one Taylor Swift song. Sorry. I just, it's not my proclivity. But- That tour schedule.

• 1:47:52Jocko Willink?

  You think you were taking heavies before.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  Stand by. Oh, I, I think she's amazing. I think she's amazing. I just, I just couldn't tell you one, one song.

• 1:47:59Jocko Willink?

  I'm just gonna be quiet over here.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  Am I in trouble now?

• 1:48:02Jocko Willink?

  About, about Tay Tay.

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry. Okay. No, she's super impressive, but.

• 1:48:07Jocko Willink?

  Backpedaling.

• 1:48:08Speaker 01

  The tour, the tour schedule, the tour schedule is incredible. It would bury ten people somehow she pulls it off.

• 1:48:18Jocko Willink?

  I heard there's some workout. Have you heard of this workout where you like do her, however long her concert is, you do some kind of exercise like what she does? And apparently it's quite challenging. Echo Charles? I've never heard of that workout. Okay.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, just the fear, the mere physical part.

• 1:48:31Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the physical part of it.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I, I like some, you know, non quote unquote punk rock stuff.

• 1:48:37Jocko Willink?

  I have some friends that are very into Taylor Swift and.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  Peter Attia, like super into.

• 1:48:43Jocko Willink?

  There you go. We call them Swifties. Yeah, Swifties, but the mother daughter combo. But I was talking to the mom whom I'm good friends with. And so it is like she has just nailed relatable emotions and feelings and eras that girls go through and women go through. And she just nailed it because she's been doing it through that in her life. So she's just captured like here's what, and so as a girl grows up into a woman, she can kind of track emotionally what's being felt. And, and it just, she just nails it apparently.

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, apparently.

• 1:49:21Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, I guess.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  The success of the tour, the success of the tour, the enthusiasm, and it seems like the universal love. Right? Like there, there are these people who are just universally loved. It's, they're rare, but I mean, I'm sure she catches flack, but if she does, I'm, I'm not aware of any of those stories. Right? You know, it seems like she's just revered and it's awesome. I think the, yeah, the, just the, right, the sheer physical stamina, the mental stamina. That, you know, obviously she's got a great team around her, but like you can't, you can't just, uh, kind of imagine that stuff into existence. So who knows? Maybe she'll run.

• 1:49:58Jocko Willink?

  Well, she's also an epic songwriter. And that's been proven over and over again, but she taps into.

• 1:50:08Jocko Willink?

  You know, that that thread of emotion that people have growing up, especially girls and women that they get and she's nailing it. So props, props to Tay Tay.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  Tay, I don't know Tay Tay.

• 1:50:20Jocko Willink?

  Taylor, Taylor Swift.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Is that her name?

• 1:50:23Jocko Willink?

  I don't know. I just kind of thought of it.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, you made that up.

• 1:50:26Jocko Willink?

  Hey, I apologize. There's, there's something you were talking about when you were, okay. So before you had the podcast, you were kind of a normal dude out there grinding.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  Still normal.

• 1:50:38Jocko Willink?

  Well, your life was more normal.

• 1:50:39Speaker 01

  My life was definitely more normal. It was me and the girlfriend and the dogs and um, and I still worked out, read, all that.

• 1:50:48Jocko Willink?

  There's something that Hollis talks about and it's authority. And if you're living your life for authority, for, for an external, so authority is something that's external and it's usually, it's large and external. That's the way he describes it. So this is when you're living your life to, for in your case academia, right? You're living your life according to this external authority. Also, according to the external authority of you've got to pay rent, you've got to pay taxes. Like there's a bunch of external things that you're, you're living your life for. And then you kind of found your vocation, I would say, in being able to teach a bunch of people kind of wide and deep and broad, millions of people. That's pretty awesome.

• 1:51:32Jocko Willink?

  When you think of someone that's trapped or they're, and, and what he says is if you're serving these external authorities, it's at some point, look, they can be aligned. Right now I'd say they're pretty aligned for you. You're happen to be able to serve kind of both masters, both the external things and your own internal. Did you stumble into that? Cause it kind of seems like you stumbled into it.

• 1:51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, the, um, I've been cursing a bit more than usual during today's podcast. Forgive me. Um, we'll need a, a explicit lyrics warning, which by the way, parents, that made every kid want to buy it more.

• 1:52:10Jocko Willink?

  That's true.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um. And that's like when they put the warnings on podcast episodes.

• 1:52:17Jocko Willink?

  Uh, what was her name?

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  Tipper Gore.

• 1:52:19Jocko Willink?

  Tipper Gore, yeah. Tipper Gore. Once again, like she was the authoritarian figure that was trying to stop free speech in music, right? And that was Al Gore's, you know, wife. So that's kind of interesting.

• 1:52:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So remind me the question again. Sorry, I took it off.

• 1:52:37Jocko Willink?

  So, so you kind of like.

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Did I? Yeah. So, oh, I was about to swear. I'll try not to swear. So I became a scientist on purpose. I sort of became a podcast kind of podcaster kind of on accident. In the sense I, I really wanted to get the information out to a broader range of people. And Instagram was limiting. I still use Instagram quite a bit as a, as a platform, but podcast just made sense.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  In some ways though, it was long before that I started teaching. So when I was a kid,

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  I would go to these, um, fish stores. And I was obsessed with fish and birds, as I mentioned before. I was a real nerd, like a real nerd. And I would even come into class on Monday sometimes and like, ask if I could give a lecture about what I learned over the weekend. I did one on medieval weapons. I was obsessed with catapults. It's like the coolest thing. And I was obsessed with fish and that kind of thing. And I was at a carnival with my mom when I was a kid. And they had the little fish, they had the little bowls with goldfish in them and you'd throw the, um, the ping pong ball. And if you got the ping pong ball and you'd get it. And I was there and I saw people doing this. And I was just mortified because they'd take the fish home and I knew that those fish were going to die if the water wasn't dechlorinated. So my mom, who's like a real do gooder, you know,

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  really like my, my mom just as like a one second aside was the kind of person where when we grew up, there was a, there was a homeless guy in our town. They called him the sheep man because he wore these sheep skins even on really hot days. Like years later, I found out not him, but she would put homeless people, she would get them hotel rooms and just pay. Like, you know, uh, like she was that kind of person. And, um, so I told her about the, the declaw. She was mortified that the fish would die. And so we went and bought a bunch of declaw. And I would then go to these things and I would give you a bottle of dechlor to dechlorinate the water when you won your fish, but there was a cost and you had to listen to me talk to you about dechlorinating and taking care of fish. So it kind of started early on, like there was a purpose and I couldn't help myself. And who knows, I have

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  a little bit of a grunting tic that takes over if I'm tired. And when I was a kid, I had a little bit of a thing and my dad used to say, hey, he used to squeeze my hand. We were in DC once on a family trip and he'd be like, stop this. And I used to hide in the closet. It was a little bit of probably like early Tourette's, kind of like, and it would give you give a lot of relief. Eventually passed. A lot of young people have this. It's more prominent in boys. And then as the frontal brain circuitry develops, it suppresses it. Because basically that's what the frontal brain does is suppress these reflexes. So fortunately, they didn't like throw me on medication. There wasn't even medication for it back then. But in any case, just like when for me to like get out what I feel inside, or for me skateboarding and falling and slamming, I'd be like, oh, I feel okay now.

• 1:55:21Speaker 01

  Or boxing, not a sport I was any good at or that I recommend. If you want to keep your brain unless you're a professional, great sport. I love it as a spectator. But I remember I'd get hit sometimes. I'm like, oh, I can think clearly now. You know, just kind of like shake off the cobwebs or like a good hard slam skateboarding. Like, ah, now the day starts. You know, it's there's something to it. But actually, that's a reminder. Earlier, you asked me about the difference between, was it OCD? And this would be appropriate time because Tourette's has a little bit of a OCD-ish component to it. You asked about OCD versus neurotic. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I was the same kid who would organize his stuffed animals all in a row. And I'm perfect. Wake up in the morning, get them all in a row and feel like I could

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  go about my day. The difference is with with true obsessive compulsive disorder, the well, the obsessions are mental. Obviously, the compulsions are the the action. The engagement in the compulsion. Doesn't sadly doesn't serve to reduce the obsession. It just exacerbates it. So like a hand washing compulsion, like it's not like you're like, oh, like I'm obsessing about washing my hands. I wash them. I feel some relief. It's you wash them and then it somehow trips a reward circuit or something. We don't really know yet. That then makes you want to do it more. So it's like an upward spiral or downward spiral, depending on how you think about it. Of that the behavior makes the obsession worse, not better. It's a dreadfully difficult thing for people, but there are decent medications now.

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  That can help and some behavioral stuff and some medication based stuff.

• 1:56:50Speaker 02

  And that's OCD. So the, and then is it a spectrum essentially like, you know, some people have it worse than others. Let me ask you that. Okay. So when I was young, I used to count the steps, you know, when I want to go upstairs and it'd always be by seven. I don't know why. I always felt like I had to do that.

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  Joey Ramone. Joey Ramone had OCD. He would go up and down the stairs. He'd have to count to seven. They were always late to tour, to tour spots. This is like discussed in the documentary.

• 1:57:15Speaker 02

  Oh, for.

• 1:57:16Jocko Willink?

  So wait, what do you mean by seven?

• 1:57:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I wouldn't go up and down the stairs. Yeah, exactly. Right. And then I'd feel kind of off put if it will, if they didn't land on seven.

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  It's like something bad was gonna happen.

• 1:57:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, nothing specific, but something bad. Exactly right. And so I had in high school or might've been junior, yeah, high school time. I remember skipping some stairs so the seven would land perfect at certain places, you know?

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  You know, it's not totally uncommon. It's actually really good that you're talking about this because a lot of people have these internal obsessions and knock on wood compulsions and things like step on a crack, break your mother's back, that kind of thing. Like you hear that in childhood and you're like, oh, you know, and like, um, it's when it starts to diminish life. That that it can become problematic, but, um, and it can get out of control. Actually, there's a guy at Harvard, um, who does beautiful work on motor patterns. His name is Ben Silovski. Mispronouncing last name Hungarian guy. Um, and he shows these videos of these rats um, learning to press levers and and turn on lights and stuff in a cage in order to access a reward.

• 1:58:22Speaker 01

  So you see the rats like kind of and they're like pressing it's like random and then they go up they get the reward like uh, then they try and reconstruct what they did. And then over time, you see these rats get like wicked fast at at doing this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you see they're hitting the levers in the right thing, they're turning on the light and off the light and then they get the thing. But they also are introducing these other behaviors like picking up the leg and doing a little circle over here that has nothing to do with the actual requirements to get the the reward. And now think about baseball pitchers. They have this whole elaborate repertoire of things that they do every single time, very few of which are actually involved in the throwing of the ball. It's just we develop these kind of these are behavioral superstitions. And they become these fixed action patterns. We have a lot of these, there's some nice studies done, I think it was at Caltech.

• 1:59:08Speaker 01

  Where they put video cameras on the parking lot and they looked at people's where where they parked, their trajectories, getting in and out of the car. And then they put lines over it like they were a rat in a experiment, but these are humans. And then they just show like six months of behavioral data and people are just like robots. Robots with like respect to like the trajectories they take through the parking lot, they might pause every once in a while and say hi to somebody like we get into these fixed action patterns. So a lot of what we do is subconscious that way. But I would say um, unless it becomes a problem, you know, uh, then it's then it's probably okay. If the best thing to do to get over that is actually literally to do what we're doing here is like to talk about with somebody. Like if you think you're crazy because you do this, you talk to someone, they go, yeah, I kind of do that too.

• 1:59:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:52Speaker 02

  So the so you and that's what it it always felt that way to me like it was a superstition when I'd stop and think about it. Not necessarily that there's something up with my brain or nothing like that. I didn't, I don't think I know what knew what OCD was at the time, but.

• 2:00:07Jocko Willink?

  Um, yeah, when you talk about it, it's kind of like, oh, wait, why do I believe that? And then you connect the dots, but then you still feel that it's working.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, you feel it's working and listen, I have, I have some superstitions. I'm a logical person, but I have some superstitions and the one, the one thing you can do is just challenge it. Like if you really want to break it, it's just like classic, you know, behavioral desensitization. You just, you get, you count to five, not seven, or you just say, mm-mm, not, not today. And then, you know, hopefully you don't get into a car accident.

• 2:00:32Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:32Speaker 01

  And that's the problem is that oftentimes people are tense and then things happen. I think, or you stay busy with other things. You, the mind wants to be occupied. I think it really does. And some people have a greater kind of hunger for thinking than others. This is that, that underlying tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic, tic thing. This is why I think doing is so valuable. Is why I think, I'm trying to get to the four thirty program. Starting to get up earlier and earlier.

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  Cause getting into a mode of forward center of mass, forward action, I think, does set you into a mode of doing rather than ruminating. I mean, there is something really deadly to the mind about scrolling in bed in the dark. Not just for the lack of sunlight, all the things you miss out on, but it does something. I don't know what it is, but it ain't good.

• 2:01:16Jocko Willink?

  My mind can scroll with no screen. I mean, my mind will just be scrolling, thinking about stuff. My wife has been doing this, which she's been, she's been super stoked on falling asleep. Now look, let's be, I'll be real honest, just between us, my wife doesn't have a lot of trouble falling asleep. This girl can sleep, she can put it down.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 2:01:34Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, she's great. But she told me the other day, she's been doing this thing where you count down from twenty, you count each breath. And if you, if you mess it up, then you start again at twenty. And it was. So I tried it and I'm like getting down to, down to one and then just having to restart the thing again.

• 2:01:56Speaker 01

  Of course you are.

• 2:01:57Jocko Willink?

  Or I'm just, or I'm just making it to nineteen. I'm like twenty and then I'm like thinking about some other stuff. Go back, think about something else. So I, I kind of can get in, it's, it's not fun. It's not fun to, to do mental scrolling. It feels like a roller coaster. So for me, if, if I'm like trying to fall asleep and you are just, it's like I'm going from one thought to another thought, to another thought, to another thought. And I'm feeling like I'm on a roller coaster in my head. But the reason I thought of this is because you said your mind likes to be occupied. Well, what my wife had read was. You need to make your mind think about a specific thing and it's easier for it to let go and fall asleep. That's why when a little kid, remember this count sheep, whatever, remember this?

• 2:02:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:42Jocko Willink?

  Little myth your parents told you, it's actually kinda true.

• 2:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of falling asleep is, is stopping to pay attention to your body position. It's about kinda just going into your mind and then your thoughts become fractured and then you fall asleep. We've put out these scripts, I've put them out on audio and video, this non-sleep deep rest, which is my, and people will say, well, that's yoga nidra, yoga nidra has intentions and things, non-sleep deep rest is like a body scan, long exhale breathing and some other stuff and, and we put them out as audio scripts because a lot of people don't wanna look at a YouTube or something.

• 2:03:16Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:17Speaker 01

  But in any case, the 10 minute and 20 minute one, and they let you really, they teach you to, to, to move away from thinking and doing to being and feeling. Now that's about not sleeping. That's about staying awake while perfectly still. I'm really interested in this state of mind that is being completely still, with the mind actively alert, mostly because Carl Dyseroth, who was a podcast, who was on my podcast, who's a like, probably the, one of the best neuroscientists that ever lived, bioengineer, he's also psychiatrist, he's got five kids, he's a hyper-functional guy. Said that his practice every night after his kids went to sleep, now they're older, they put themselves to sleep, is it to sit in a chair, and to close his eyes and deliberately think in full sentences, complete sentences, it's hard.

• 2:04:00Speaker 01

  And then Rick Rubin, who I spend, again, a fair amount of time with, oftentimes will, will go into like lying down or seated, you know, position, just kinda like keep, but mind very active, thinking while still. He's also big on walking and that kinda thing. It's interesting how Rick has kind of come to embody like the, the mystique of creativity. You know, there's so much mystique around SEAL teams and around spec ops, like, cause it's like, how do they do what they do? And it's like, well, they're not really gonna tell you, but you can keep wondering, but that's mystique, that's what's cool. I remember the old commercials for it, like footsteps on the beach, then they disappear. That was the coolest one. The coolest commercial, I don't know how it did with recruiting, but it was a cool commercial. And then with Rick, it's sort of like, how does this guy?

• 2:04:42Speaker 01

  Access this and I think he has his own protocols. He's not like just haphazard about it. He spends time in the sun, walking. He's talked about some of this, you know, still while thinking. Dyseroth does that too. Einstein was known for that, walking then stopping, closing his eyes and thinking. So something about body still, mind active. That seems like it's a good, good place to be.

• 2:05:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you gotta, gotta get control of that brain sometimes, man. And I, I'll be the first one to tell you like sometimes mine. I like to be really tired at the end of the day.

• 2:05:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, you mentioned that when you came on my podcast.

• 2:05:17Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, like if I'm, like if I get to train hard, man, I feel so good. I just go to sleep. I just, my head hits the pillow, I'm out.

• 2:05:25Speaker 01

  Did you roll this morning?

• 2:05:26Jocko Willink?

  I did not roll this morning.

• 2:05:28Speaker 01

  But you trained this morning?

• 2:05:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, definitely. But like yesterday, freaking had really good workout, really good training. And like I just fall asleep in a millisecond, like your head hits the pillow. But if there's, if you don't get, if I don't get that, that physical, like let it out, get it out. Then it's gonna be, then my mind can start thinking about things. And also if my mind start thinking about things, even if I'm kinda tired, but if there's something going on in my brain, it's like, yeah, that'll, that'll, that'll tick many hours away.

• 2:05:58Speaker 01

  Earlier you asked me, um, whether I feel like I'm in the right groove of my career. I, I was rude. I, I didn't ask you like, like you've been at this a while. A little while now. How long you've had the podcast?

• 2:06:10Jocko Willink?

  Since 2008, yeah.

• 2:06:12Speaker 01

  Okay. Nine years. It's good, good, good. Not 15, but yeah, eight years. And you have the other stuff dialed. Your kids are mostly out of the house, except one. You're happily married. You've got great businesses. Like are you thinking specific evolution? I know you have the, the show or the movie, the Warrior Kid.

• 2:06:29Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the Warrior Kid.

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:06:31Speaker 01

  He didn't ask me to plug this, folks. I'm actually just interested in stuff. There's, there's no, see, well, earlier before we started, we were talking about how like, there are all these theories about how podcasters have these like secret commercial relationships. So like we won't talk about, but like, uh, cause we don't wanna like exacerbate the conspiracy theory, but, um, which will be kinda fun.

• 2:06:47Jocko Willink?

  We just did even more by saying.

• 2:06:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll say it. Listen, I, um, but, but this is, this is cool. You, you mentioned this the other day and I'm excited and I retweeted about it, um, re-exed about it. Way of the Warrior Kid is gonna be a movie?

• 2:07:01Jocko Willink?

  Yep, movie. Yeah.

• 2:07:02Speaker 01

  Awesome. With Chris Pratt.

• 2:07:03Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's He was in Zero Dark Thirty. He was in Zero Dark Thirty and he was in Terminal List and he was in a bunch of other stuff. I mean, he's Star Lord, Jurassic Park, like, he's very popular. Yeah, he's a popular dude. He's, yeah, he's great, too. Just awesome. Super, super cool, super stoked. And, you know, that, that, that is, that, that book, I've gotten such the best feedback of everything I've done in my life. The letters and emails and handwritten notes from kids and from parents that did their first pull up, got an A on the math test, memorized the presidents, like, all the things that are in that book that are gonna help them so many different ways.

• 2:07:47Jocko Willink?

  Nothing more gratifying and feels better than helping out all these people. And, and also giving kids a framework, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a, one of the messages in the book is like, you need a code to live by. It's everything I just talked about. Oh, there's a couple of things that I, there's a few things that these aren't gonna change. That's like the code you have as a human and part of that book is the kid writes his own warrior kid code. And once you have a code that you live by, it really can give you some direction in which way you're gonna go. And it's gonna let you make so many decisions that's gonna point you in the right direction and lead you to a better path. So, to have that opportunity and, and actually, the guy that I had, I have, I probably had four or five people

• 2:08:32Jocko Willink?

  reach out to me over the years that wanted to turn it into a movie. Finally, this guy named Ben Everard, he reached out to me and what had happened to him was he walked into his kid's room in the morning, you know, 11-year-old kid and the kid was doing pushups. And he says, what are you doing? He's like, I'm gonna be a warrior kid. What's that? Shows him the book. And he's a movie producer and he said, oh, my gosh, if this book can have this impact on my kid, what is it? So he reads it, he's like, we gotta turn this into a movie. So that was kind of what, what got the ball rolling this time. Eventually, you know, got the screenplay written by a really good screenwriter, which is a totally different skillset. I've been joking about this a lot. My initial thought was, oh, we need a screenplay. I was like, well, obviously, I'll just write a screenplay. Obviously, I wrote the book.

• 2:09:17Jocko Willink?

  Who could do a better job than me? But it's a different skillset and I, what I would have done is I would have taken the books and turned them into the movie. There's like one-for-one transfer, you know, it would have just been like that.

• 2:09:29Jocko Willink?

  But movies are different than books. They land different. They, it's, it's audio, it's visual. A book is a book. You're, it's very, it's, it's personal, right? So got this great screenwriter named Will Staples and he, he just took this book and turned it into an awesome screenplay. And eventually, uh, Chris Pratt, we were working on some other things with Chris Pratt, Origin USA and Jocko Fuel, and he's been using Jocko Fuel for a long time and he's, he's a patriotic guy, supports Origin USA. And so we were talking about doing things, partners,

• 2:10:09Jocko Willink?

  partnerships on that end. And he ended up getting a copy of the script and read it and was like, I want to do this. And so we're just very fortunate and he's a great guy and we got a great team. There's a guy named McG who's a awesome director. So yeah, we've had a, we're, it's awesome, man. It's awesome. And it's gonna, it's gonna, it's going to help a lot of parents and kids get on the right path in life and learn about hard work and learn about discipline and learn about respect and learn about empathy and learn about how to learn. It, it's, I, I'm very, very lucky, very happy, very blessed to be in this situation and super stoked as well. So.

• 2:10:53Speaker 01

  Stoked for you. I can't wait to see it.

• 2:10:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And it's one of those things, you know, you're asking, so am I in the right place? I mean, basically, am I in the right vocation? Uh, I guess so. My, my, my ultimate vocation was being in the SEAL teams. Like to me, that's gonna be the only thing that I will look at and go, it's like, yeah, that's kind of what I was supposed to do. And I was very lucky I got to do it. And I got to do it for 20 years, had awesome experiences, worked with awesome people. And so now everything else is just pure bonus. It's, it's pure bonus. It's, it's awesome. And trying to take some of those lessons that I learned.

• 2:11:35Jocko Willink?

  In the SEAL teams, obviously, and pass them on the leadership lessons especially. But, you know, I took those lessons and tried to give them to my kids. That's why I wrote those books. So I'll, I'll continue to do that. But is doing a podcast as fun as it is to go, you know, out to the desert training facility and run and gun? Nope, it's not. It's just not. Sorry, Echo Charles. You're cool and everything. Like hanging out with you. Thank you. But I'd rather be shooting a machine gun. I understand.

• 2:12:05Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, that's a pretty unique and peak set of experiences. You know, knowing a fair number of people who are in the teams, it's like you guys obviously enjoyed something really special.

• 2:12:18Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, best job ever. The best, best job ever. And it's weird. I've kind of, I've kind of gone through a little transition where I used to never tell anyone to join. Because the chances are you're not going to make it, which is a terrible thing. And so when someone says, oh, I'm thinking about going to SEAL teams, I'd be like, yeah, you should. Uh, maybe check out the Marine Corps, maybe check out the Army, you know, go do something else. Because there's a, at least an 80% chance that you're not going to make it. And of course, no one thinks that they're that person, right? Every person that shows up to SEAL training thinks that they're the one that's going to make it. And 80% of them aren't. And when you take that to like, they haven't even joined yet, now it's probably 96%. Of the people that joined the Navy to be a SEAL, most of them don't even get there in the first place.

• 2:13:00Jocko Willink?

  So it's a very small percentage and I, I got into a habit of telling people, yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's a good job, but it's difficult. There's drawbacks. I kind of am now at a point where dude, it's the best job ever. It's the best job ever. You work with awesome guys. If you want to do that kind of stuff. I, I don't understand what else you would, could do with your life. So if you want to shoot machine guns, you want to blow things up and most important, you're willing to risk your life and you're going to have to kill people and you're, and you could get killed, which is the huge piece of it. It's like, oh, oh, I want to be a SEAL because I want to live in Coronado and I want to freaking run on the beach.

• 2:13:44Jocko Willink?

  Like all that means nothing. If you, what you're doing, what your job is to kill people and put your life on the line for your friends and for your country. That's what it is. So if you have that thought in your mind. Best job ever. If you have any other little thought in your mind like, well, I, I wanna do it. There's some little thing like, it would be cool, but anything like any but in there. It's, it's the worst decision you can make. But if that's really what you wanna do. Best job ever. I had the best time ever. Me and my friends, friends for life. Best time. Doing the best job. Like it's awesome. So. You can't do that forever. Can't have that job forever.

• 2:14:28Jocko Willink?

  And it's, and when I got to 20 years, I looked at my family and I was like.

• 2:14:34Jocko Willink?

  You know, like, I've been gone a lot. My kids barely knew me. You know, I, I tell us, my first deployment to Iraq, when I left, my son couldn't crawl. When I got back, he's walking around. My second deployment to Iraq. I got home and my son could swim. Someone other person, who's actually a Navy lifeguard. Taught him how to swim. So I'm a waterman, I'm a surfer, I'm a frogman. And someone else taught my son how to swim. That's jacked up. You know, you wanna talk about missing out on life events and then, you know, throw my daughters into that as well. What did I miss from them? All kinds of stuff. So.

• 2:15:16Jocko Willink?

  I got to 20 years and I thought to myself, well, I, I'm gonna go in. And it was a bummer because it was a hard decision to make. I had a freaking ridiculously. Awesome career. I was in a great spot. I was, you know. Screen for X, I was like, create screen for XO, deep select, like I was, I was in a great spot. My career was awesome.

• 2:15:39Speaker 01

  You got to op a lot.

• 2:15:40Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah. And I was past, my, my days of operating were. Were coming to an end. They, they, they were kinda over. Like. You know, you get to that level of seniority, you're not gonna get to operate. That's why, that's why in the SEAL teams, there's a lot of guys that get out at that 12 to 14 year mark. Actually 14, they're gonna hang on, but 10 to 12, 13 years, guys are like, they're looking at their future and they think, ah, well, I came in the job to be a commando and now I'm gonna be not a commando, I'll be helping the commandos, I'll be supporting them, but not gonna be doing that job anymore. That's what a lot of guys, they don't, they don't have that same affection for the job at that juncture.

• 2:16:21Jocko Willink?

  For me, it wasn't really that, it was more, more, it was just staring at a bunch of deployments in, in the immediate future and, you know, my kids were just about going into high school. And, you know, you start talking about wrestling tournaments and jujitsu tournaments, you're just gonna look, you're just gonna, you're not gonna see any of it. That's what's happening. And that's why guys that do 20 years, 25 years, 30, I got friends that have done 40 years in the teams, 40 years in the teams.

• 2:16:56Speaker 01

  They call them bullfrogs.

• 2:16:58Jocko Willink?

  If, if you're, if you're the, if you're the person with the lowest class number on active duty, yes, you, this is one. You're the bullfrog. And there's one at a time. And that person, you know, usually will have around 40 years. That's how long being on active duty. So, yeah, that bullfrog position is hard earned. And huge sacrifice. You know, like families are, are not going to be seen very much. And the teams comes first, it always does. So, you're committing to that life. And I did, man, and the teams came first for me, 100%. You can ask anyone in my family, like, what was the number one?

• 2:17:42Jocko Willink?

  What was the number one priority when Jocko was in the teams? They'll tell you without question what the number one priority was. That's not balanced. Maybe if I was more balanced, if I would have been more balanced, maybe I would have been more open to staying in longer. If I would have figured out a way like, oh yeah, I can, I don't have to be 100% focused on the teams or, or 97% focused on the teams and 3% on my family. But I wasn't gonna miss a training evolution for anything.

• 2:18:08Jocko Willink?

  So yeah, that's at a, at a certain point, that ride is going to come to an end. And that's exactly what, you know, I had to make that decision. This freaking rough. And especially because I,

• 2:18:26Jocko Willink?

  I, I was expected to carry on, you know, and, and for me to go and tell, you know, I'd worked for the admiral. For me to go tell the admiral, what I was doing was, was a tough conversation, you know? And to tell my immediate boss, who's the commodore at the time, to tell him, hey, here's what I'm doing. And it's, it's rough and there's a whole, and, and unfortunately there was a whole bunch of guys that got out around that same time. And so it wasn't good for the community at large. It was rough. It was rough.

• 2:18:58Speaker 01

  But you did it on your terms. They didn't tell you, you need to go. You didn't get injured.

• 2:19:04Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:19:04Speaker 01

  It was time. Like you decided it was time and there's, there's something beautiful to that, right? That's that sense of agency.

• 2:19:10Jocko Willink?

  Well, I don't know because I, if I, I, I don't, I don't think that I wanted that. That was harder. If I would have been injured and been like, sorry guys, or been a screw up and been like, yeah, I guess I can't. But it wasn't like that. It was a hundred percent on me to look at my friends, my brothers and be like, mm, I'm, I'm, I'm quitting. It's, it's quitting. You're, I'm going to quit. And because that's what you're doing and you go your entire career in the SEAL teams. It's like I talked about earlier. It's like, we're not quitting. We're going to carry on. We're not complaining. Like you don't complain. You don't complain when you miss your kids learning how to swim. No one in the teams knew that my kid, no one, no one, no one knew that.

• 2:19:56Jocko Willink?

  No one knew that my kids, you know, went to the, had the recital, did this, starting in the school play. I didn't see any of that. Where was I? I was at work. Didn't tell what, no one in the teams tells anybody. You, you, you eat it and you carry on and, and that's what I did. And I did it because I loved the teams. I mean, I wouldn't do anything else. It's freaking the best job ever and the guys are awesome and do anything for them. And so when you get to, to the end of that, so for me, that vocation was a hundred percent. I was a hundred percent aligned. I was a hundred percent aligned. The, the pull that I started to get was, hey, hold on a second. What about these freaking four children?

• 2:20:36Jocko Willink?

  That you created and that you have not been paying attention to. How's that feel? Doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel good.

• 2:20:47Speaker 01

  The other team.

• 2:20:48Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the other team. And, and so that's why I made that decision. And then from there,

• 2:20:57Jocko Willink?

  the, the other stuff kind of happened. Like you said, you know, and I joke about this. So you said, there's no diabolical plan. I didn't have like a plan for any of this, for any of this. It was like, oh, well, there was a guy that asked me to come and talk to his executive about leadership. I was like, okay, well, I can do that. And then he said, can you come talk to all my divisions? And I said, oh, I guess so. He started paying me money. It's like, okay, cool. And then the, the owner of that company, I want you to come talk to all my CEOs of all the companies I own. And he owned 45, 50. So it was just, so then I have a new job, basically, teaching about leadership. And then I need some help. Call my friend Leif. Hey, Leif, need help?

• 2:21:40Jocko Willink?

  You in? Hell yeah. Let's go. Now people are asking us, do you have this stuff written? No. End up writing a book. First book, Extreme Ownership. I, I thought Extreme Ownership would be like, I'll give it away at the back of, of, of an event, like for free.

• 2:21:54Speaker 01

  Did a lot better than that.

• 2:21:55Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, did a lot better than that. Didn't expect it. I didn't see how well it would translate to the, to the world. I mean, even the title is Extreme Ownership. What does that mean? It means taking responsibility for your actions. That's what it means. That's something you learned in second grade. That's something I learned, you know, the teacher told you in fifth grade. You, you need to be accountable for what you do. You need to be responsible for that's Extreme Ownership. But people realize that that's what they need in their world. So then as that's coming out of a SEAL friend of mine told Peter Attia to tell Tim Ferriss, dude,

• 2:22:34Jocko Willink?

  You should have this guy on the podcast.

• 2:22:37Speaker 01

  I still remember in my mind, the photo of you. Was it like the scariest Navy SEAL?

• 2:22:42Jocko Willink?

  He clickbaited that stuff. Good job, Tim Ferriss, like the most clickbait title.

• 2:22:48Speaker 01

  I was in my apartment, it was Keegan and mine's apartment off High Street in Oakland. I remember where I was standing in the kitchen, I saw it and I just go like, I was like, yeah, if you were gonna like draw a Navy SEAL, I'd been living in San Diego prior, right? You guys used to come over and take over bars. Like, I, I, I have good friends in the teams community, so I can joke about this. And I spoke at a Veteran Solutions, that Marcus Capone and Amber Capone's Veteran Solution event at Coronado and Veterans Day. And, uh, room full of SEALs and I said the same thing, same thing, I used to, I don't drink much, never really did, but these days I don't drink at all, but I was in, I'd go into bars, hang out, whatever, and you guys would show up and I was like, okay, night's over, let's just leave, like, it's over, it's over, like, they're taking over, let's

• 2:23:33Speaker 01

  go. You guys, yeah, it was, um, San Diego, good spot for you guys.

• 2:23:38Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:39Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:23:40Jocko Willink?

  It's great.

• 2:23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the, the point is, I think that it's such, it's a great community. I could see how it would create that peak thing. It's also, listen, you also, you're alive, you know, I mean, not telling you anything you don't already know, you're alive. So four kids, missing the swim instruction thing is, sucks. I feel you on that. Not being able to be there for any of it, you know, you clearly did the math. And, um, the other team seems to be thriving.

• 2:24:08Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, the other team's great. And you know, my wife, God bless her, she just held down the fort like a boss and never complained about anything and just gave, you know, she just covered all, all the home front. I'm talking three kids in maybe four years, the first three kids were like in four, yeah, like in four years. She got screaming kids. My wife, I remember, she's, uh,

• 2:24:40Jocko Willink?

  Very bad morning sickness. Her morning sickness would be 24 hours a day for the first trimester of Burt's. And I remember we had, she's pregnant with my son and my other daughter, so it was like one's four and one's two or three. And my wife is like standing over the toilet throwing up. And she's such an awesome, sweet, good woman. She's looking at my daughters and she's telling them she's sorry. And I'm like, I'm saying there, I'm a total idiot, right? I'm just like, there's nothing you can do. Your wife's just throwing up your daughters. As I mentioned, they don't know, I'm not around enough for me to be like, hey, come with me. They want to be their mom. I'm the random dude that shows up every three weeks with like laundry. And, but there's my wife just holding down the fort and saying like,

• 2:25:24Jocko Willink?

  I'm, I'm sorry. She's apologizing to my daughters that they have to see her like this. I'm like, bro, this is rough.

• 2:25:32Speaker 01

  Talk about a warrior.

• 2:25:33Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So she was holding down the fort and then when I eventually, you know, retired, and so now I go into leadership teaching and then going back to Tim Ferriss was, Tim Ferriss has me on his podcast.

• 2:25:49Jocko Willink?

  And again, at, you know, there wasn't that many podcasts then. There was a very small number of podcasts.

• 2:25:57Speaker 01

  Probably like 2013, 2014.

• 2:25:59Jocko Willink?

  It was 2015. It was 2015. Yep. So 2015, that podcast come out and then Rogan hears it. I go on Rogan's podcast and both of them told me, like, start a podcast. And I'm like, okay. So started the podcast.

• 2:26:13Speaker 01

  Twitter account.

• 2:26:14Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And started Twitter account too. And Ferris lied to me. He's like, he's like, just started. I'll help you. He never helped me. But you know, he did help me by telling me to start it. But he's like, don't worry, I'll show you how to do it.

• 2:26:25Speaker 01

  That's a pretty amazing team to.

• 2:26:29Jocko Willink?

  Oh, it's ridiculous. And so when the pod, when my podcast come out, came out. Again, what am I talking about? I'm talking about the stuff as to reference what you talked about earlier. I'm talking about the stuff that's coming from my heart, who I am, what I care about, what I like to talk about. What do I like to talk about? War, leadership, discipline, like those are things that I talk about and that's what we were talking about. And you know, speaking of like highly produced podcasts, because we haven't really changed very much. And someone asked me like, hey, are you gonna do? Are you ever thinking about, you know, maybe putting a background in this kind of stuff? And I was like, oh, you remember that disco song that ACDC wrote? And they're like, no. And I go back, cause that's not ACDC, you know?

• 2:27:12Jocko Willink?

  And I'm not a disco, I'm not gonna make a disco album. We're, we're making what we make us like, still what I really like doing is.

• 2:27:21Jocko Willink?

  I actually really like reading books that are written by first person accounts or written first person accounts of war. That's what I like. Why? Cause it teaches you about human nature. You get to understand people better when you see them in very terrible situations and how they get through them and what they do and how the other people react around them. That's one of my methodologies for, for learning and becoming better. So that's how all this started and. And then it's just applying sort of the mentality of the DIY punk rock mentality. Oh, well.

• 2:27:58Jocko Willink?

  I drink tea. Okay, well, people are asking me, what kind of tea do you drink? Cause I talked about on Tim Ferriss podcast and I was like, well, there's these few different brands, but why don't I? I could just make my own.

• 2:28:09Speaker 01

  I love the white pomegranate tea.

• 2:28:10Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. So there you go. Made my own.

• 2:28:13Speaker 01

  And I wasn't paid to say that. I just, I'm gonna like it. I like, I'm like.

• 2:28:17Jocko Willink?

  But I think, I think I made 10,000 tins. The first run. Made 10,000 tins, put them on Amazon and they were gone in like. Whatever it was nine days and I'm like, yo. So. That's kind of where it started. Okay, well, people want good products, boom, started making. And that's kind of how this stuff started and that's where, where I ended up. So what does that have to do with my vocation? To me, the vocation is ultimately.

• 2:28:48Jocko Willink?

  Trying to help people and trying to help people with whatever they're doing. And whether it's and look, if you interact with other human beings, you're in a leadership position and you probably need help doing it. Most people, leadership is not a natural thing. Leadership is not any more natural than skateboarding. In other words, yeah, there's one of your buddies was a little bit naturally better than you and you're a little bit naturally worse. But neither one of you was born with the ability to do a kickflip. It doesn't exist. You have to learn it. He got to learn a little bit better. He had a little bit better coordination. Maybe he had a little bit better build for it. He had better muscle fiber recognition, whatever the case may be. And so he's like, but

• 2:29:30Jocko Willink?

  he didn't know how to kick, do a kickflip when he was born and people don't know how to lead when they're born. They might have some natural attributes that make it a little bit easier for them. Maybe they're articulate. Maybe they're able to break things down. Well, maybe they're able to simplify things. Maybe they're a little bit better at understanding of what emotions other people are having and all those things are going to be beneficial, but you still need to learn how to do the kickflip. You still need to learn how to lead. And so for me, that's kind of the essence of it. How can I help people out? Well, started with leadership. How can I help them with that? Turned into like, how can I help you get in better physical condition? Turned into, oh, you got kids. Let's help those kids out as well. And so that's what it really boils down to me. And that's where the most

• 2:30:12Jocko Willink?

  gratification comes from is being able to help people out. So.

• 2:30:17Speaker 01

  One, the fact that it's an expression from your heart comes through, like people that again, it's like a felt thing. I don't, I don't think any of us, podcasters, non podcasters, athlete, academic, poet, writer, whatever it's can get any degree of success without like really touching into like what, what comes from the heart. And I think this is what Hollis is talking about when you, you have to listen to that call from your soul, your psyche. I think some people.

• 2:30:47Jocko Willink?

  He says it's an irrational calling.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  An irrational.

• 2:30:49Jocko Willink?

  An irrational calling, which is important to remember.

• 2:30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that you, that you remind that. And also he several times reminded me that. The people who do it, the people who like really step into their expression are gonna suffer. It you wish they didn't have to. You wish it was just all reward. There are rewards certainly, but that they're suffering. And that's part of the reason people resonate resonate with it. Like, again, you know, we talk about Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, you know, anyone like you, you know, pick your favorite musician, like, you have to imagine that that the because of the amount of emotion they put into it, there's zero minus one chance that it's all rosy.

• 2:31:31Speaker 01

  It has to involve suffering. And I think and I think that's one of the reasons we revere these people. And I mean, you're highly revered and you know, that might be weird for me to, you know, to sit across from me and and to hear me say that. But the the truth is like, people can feel like you, you take the things you learned and the structures and the the things that make you uniquely you. And then you're trying to share them with the world in a way that can really benefit other people. And you know, that's where there's this like protective part of me that comes out, not that you need protection from anyone, let alone me to protect you, but but I would, I would, you're a friend and I would. The

• 2:32:09Speaker 01

  the thing that's frustrating is when you see people coming at your friends who are like, like, you know, who are doing it from the heart. And then you're just like, damn, like, like, it's so, it's so aggravating, you know, I mean, whatever they throw at me, and I'm sure we'll all get stuff thrown at us more, like, whatever they gets thrown at me, or like, it's the the response internally for me is nothing like the response when I see friends getting attacked. And we got some friends in the podcast community. I've got friends in the science community. Remember, academics are under fire right now. They're losing jobs left and right. And there's a that's a whole other biz. But, you know, you you just, it brings out the spirit of like, you want to just say like, hey, like,

• 2:32:50Speaker 01

  They're trying to get it right. Stop. Like, stop. But, you know, there, there, I think there will always be, you know, 10, maybe 20% of people who's just like, have taken upon themselves to like, completely dismiss their own sense of agency and just try and tear people down because they feel like that's the right thing to do. But it's a completely misplaced sense of, of agency, you know?

• 2:33:12Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I think that's just the way, that's just, that's just, as we say in Hawaii, that's just how, right? That's just how, you gotta be, you gotta expect that stuff.

• 2:33:21Speaker 01

  I'm trying to learn to do this. Somebody really close to me who serves as an advisor to me is always just saying, like, he's like, that your life will be so much easier when you realize that there's a certain percentage of people that are just really unwell. And I'm like, no, no, like they're like,

• 2:33:35Jocko Willink?

  I can change their minds.

• 2:33:36Speaker 01

  Or just, or we can, we can, you know, we can talk about, we can figure this out, like 10A, and they're like, no, no, they're that unwell. And I'm like, oh, it drives me crazy. And, um, you know, I think that that's my work and my, my thing is to, to realize that.

• 2:33:51Jocko Willink?

  There's something else to be careful of and I, and I made an explicit note when I was kind of getting ready for this. Cause I, I knew we were going to talk about like, what's your true vocation, what you're calling, this irrational calling? And gotta go after that. And there's a separation between the authoritarian things in the world that you kind of have to obey. And if that doesn't match up, you're gonna be, you're gonna suffer. Here's the thing you want to watch out for too, is like, and you just said it, which is chasing your dreams. There's gonna be a lot of suffering and there's absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that you ever get anything good from it, like externally. There, you, you, look, if you're doing it, like when people, for a while,

• 2:34:36Jocko Willink?

  it was sort of now that everyone already has a podcast, like everyone, but there was a while where not everyone had one yet. And people would ask me like, hey, you know, I want to start a podcast. What do you think? Or what, what, what advice do you have? And I would say, if you want to do it because you, it's in your system and you want to get it out? Cool, then go do that and upload it and be happy. If you want to do it because you think a lot of people want to hear what you have to say and they're going to listen to it, don't like, keep in mind, there's a very slim chance that that's going to happen. Cause.

• 2:35:12Jocko Willink?

  We're, I was just talking to this other day, like, most of the time, most people don't want to hear what you have to say. Like, that just doesn't, it's not normal. Like, if I'm in a meeting, I sit there and think in a meeting, most people don't want to hear what I have to say. Like, people don't want to hear what you have to say. So, that's most of us, most of the time. Occasionally, you have this strain of knowledge that people wanted to hear. It's like, oh, wow, this guy, like you said, it landed with a bunch of people at a certain time. Okay. That's uncommon. So, if you're going to, for lack of a better word, follow your dreams, you have to do it because that's what you want to do for yourself to get these things out there. And if the world happens to appreciate it, great. And if they don't, you gotta be okay with that.

• 2:35:57Jocko Willink?

  The chances are, they're not going to appreciate it. The chances are, your efforts and your suffering and your work is going to go, it's not going to be rewarded. It's just going to be out there. And if, and so if you're doing it because of that, great. If you're doing it for some, if you're doing all these things for the external, by the way, by the external forces, including your ego,

• 2:36:20Jocko Willink?

  that's another thing that Hollis talks about. Hollis talks about your ego being an external force on the true you. So, your ego is an external force that's saying, oh, I would like a bunch of people to listen to me. So, therefore, I'm gonna write a book, or therefore, I'm gonna start a podcast, or therefore, I'm going to do this performative thing in the world. Well, you better just make sure that you're doing it because you want to do it, not to satisfy your ego, not to satisfy your neighbors, not to satisfy the interwebs or anybody else, because that's gonna be rough. It's gonna be rough. That's, that would, I would just say, watch out for that. If you want to do it because you think there's gonna be seven people that are gonna be freaking hyped for it, and you're down, cool. Dude, do you think that I thought a bunch of people were gonna want to listen to me talk about

• 2:37:03Jocko Willink?

  the, you know, genocide and, and war crimes, like?

• 2:37:09Jocko Willink?

  I didn't think that. Did I think people were, oh, there's a out of print book from nineteen thirty-two about World War One, written in the first person that is out of print, literally out of print. It doesn't exist anymore. I have a copy. I bet a bunch of people are gonna wanna hear me read and reflect on that. What are the chances? No, we didn't do it for, I wasn't thinking, hey, I'm gonna go do this. So, cuz a bunch of people are gonna wanna listen to this. In fact, we haven't done that. I haven't done that. It's like, oh, I've got a book that was written by a marine that was in Guadalcanal, who wrote a first-person account of what it was like for him. I want to read that.

• 2:37:55Jocko Willink?

  If anybody else wants to hear it, they can press play. If they don't, it's okay. And I, and I think having that attitude is a smart attitude to have. And I also think that it's the, it's the authentic thing to do.

• 2:38:10Speaker 01

  Totally, and I think that there's a, a way in which whatever we happen to be working on or caring about most, I'm not talking about podcasters, although it includes podcasters. That's the thing that if it feels like, almost like a compulsion, not the OCD clinical thing, but almost like it has to come out, then that's the best-case scenario, because there isn't that deliberating, do I do this, do I not do this? Like, it has to come out, and, and it's just, it just runs through you. I mean, people talk about this, like, like spirit running through you. Hollis talked about this, about it, in the best circumstance, you, you, you drop in once a day or so, touch into your psyche, your spirit, what, who you are, your unique expression, and then something runs through you, it comes out, and it benefits the world.

• 2:38:55Speaker 01

  That's the, that's the, that's the ultimate, you know, form of humanity. Does it work that way? Also, the rewards, when they come, can be distracting. They can contaminate. People start doing stuff for money. Rick's talked a lot about this in his previous book tour around the creative act. Like, he talks about it as your offering to God. Like, that's how he talks about your creative expression. Because if you're paying attention to the metrics of, oh, well, get paid this or do it that, then people start modifying. There's this amazing clip, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Basquiat, about Jean-Michel Basquiat?

• 2:39:26Jocko Willink?

  No.

• 2:39:26Speaker 01

  Okay. Amazing movie, not the documentary, I haven't seen that. It's got Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, David Bowie,

• 2:39:33Jocko Willink?

  Pam.

• 2:39:33Speaker 01

  Parker Posey, um, uh, Benicio del Toro. It's amazing and it's like him when he was coming up as a painter. Courtney Love, it's awesome.

• 2:39:42Jocko Willink?

  What's the name of the movie?

• 2:39:43Speaker 01

  Basquiat, um, B A S Q U I A T.

• 2:39:47Jocko Willink?

  And this is a famous painter?

• 2:39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, famous painter, the Andy Warhol, he was this kind of a street artist that made it big. Anyway, I don't, I won't give away, amazing, amazing movie. And there's this great scene where he's shooting hoops with his best friend who's played by, um, Benicio del Toro, um, who I think is supposed to be the young Vincent Gallo. And he asks him, he says to, um, to his friend Benny, who's Benicio del Toro, he goes like, hey, how long do you think it takes to get famous? And his, and so Benicio del Toro does this just brilliant, one and a half minute description. I'll send it to you as a clip. If we, maybe we can link it, maybe not, I don't know, but one and a half minute description of how, how long it takes to get famous, how they'll reward you for doing something a certain way. And then when you're trying to evolve, they'll punish you. So you continue to do the thing that initially got you famous.

• 2:40:32Speaker 01

  Then you'll be rewarded again, but then they're going to hate you for doing it that way anyway. And then in the end, you end up right back where you started, but basically wishing that you were an unknown person because then you could be left alone. And so, um, it's just a brilliant, like, street level, kind of like, uh, guy from Manhattan telling a friend, basically, listen, you got your life exactly where you want it. You're painting, you're making money, you have an apartment, you have a beautiful girlfriend. Like, you don't want that life. And, uh, it's really interesting and, um, and, and it's not to say that, that success isn't great. Success is great, but people, you have to be so mindful in any pursuit as to why you're doing something. Um, and if it's a physical pursuit, like in the SEAL teams where you can get killed,

• 2:41:15Speaker 01

  or it's a sport, or it's music or something like, if you get away from the essence of why you're doing it, there's, we know this, there's basically zero chance of success. If you do it for the pure essence of it, and I know Rick's talked about this, you just said it, far more succinctly and eloquently than I could, that. But there is a chance, if you do it for the right reasons, you keep doing it for the practice of doing it, and it comes from the heart. And you know, we talk about the heart, the heart, the heart, and I think that it's one of these things where it's like, what is that? That's the thing where like, you can't imagine not doing it, and you're scared to do it, and it doesn't feel right. And it's also where you, and we haven't talked about this, but like, aside from outside the teams, but where you also assemble the people around you that can help you do what you need to do. Like, I didn't go, oh, podcast,

• 2:42:00Speaker 01

  mic in and go. It was like, Rob Moore, producer, get Mike playback, you know, pull together things. I, again, I have many, many flaws, but one thing I've, I've managed to do very well across my life, for whatever reason, is I can assemble an awesome, awesome team to do work. My, the people who've been in my lab, my students, my postdocs, like to get the best work done with a ton of attention to the right things. And, you know, and I look to them, I'm just like, they, they deserve like, 99.9% of the, the credit. I raise some money to do it. I try and guide them along, but just spectacular. A couple of them are professors now. Nothing makes me happier than like, the call I got this morning, hey, what do you think of this person? It was a woman who worked in my lab who now has her own

• 2:42:44Speaker 01

  lab. And I'm like, she's awesome. He's like, great, I'm putting her up for this big award. You're like, yes, like, nothing feels, you know, there's like, nothing feels better than that. So, of being able to assemble a team, even if it's one other person, or someone that you can talk to at the end of the day or week, like, hey, check me on this. Like, no one goes at it completely alone. Some people in the podcast community, or other communities are more of lone wolves, but nobody's doing this stuff alone. You just see that person. Lex has got a team, Joe's got a team, you got a team, I got a team, like, and you pull together those people, and that's huge. I don't care what your vocation is, like, you need people around you who can be like, more of this, less of that, and you, you know, and iterate.

• 2:43:24Jocko Willink?

  I do have to say that you can manufacture success with like my, my examples, the monkeys, the band, the monkeys, right? And you just take one of those boy bands, like a boy band where they say, hey, here's the formula. We need this beat. We need this like riff. We need this kind of lyrics and they put them together. We need this look like they select the monkeys because this guy is the cute one and this guy is the jock one and they, they do that. And, but here's the thing, and it's very obvious when you fast forward, however many years, oh, like they had

• 2:44:04Jocko Willink?

  no soul and they're kind of meaningless. And so that can happen. Like you can do that with music. You could do that with a podcast. You could do that with, you could write a, you know, a, a shocking title of a book and you could get it out there and it, but if you're, if there, if it's not coming from a place that's real, then people will see through it.

• 2:44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it won't go anywhere. One podcast that's great. I need to listen to it more, but I've listened to it some is the founders podcast with David Senra. He just talks about founders and he's covered like, amazing. You can tell he's just like an ultra nerd about founders of companies and stuff. It's spectacular podcast. And then when I went and visited Rick last summer, we would tread water in the morning. It's kind of like, like SEAL Team type thing to do, but there, this is like Rick and me. So it's slightly different picture, but we're, we're treading water and we would listen to, um, history of 100 rock and roll songs by Andrew Hickey. And, um, it's just an awesome podcast about rock and roll songs and, and stories. And, and I don't know, you know, I didn't continue to listen to it when I got back, but I'm like,

• 2:45:09Speaker 01

  whoever that Andrew Hickey is, you know, he loves rock and roll history and you just feel it like he'll talk about rock. He's probably talking about rock and roll history right now. And so, yeah, like learning stuff and teaching, you know, that's always been my thing. Gather, organize and disseminate information. And, uh, and by the way, never did I say, um, flawless human being, you know, it's like gather, organize and disseminate what I think is valuable information. And so I think it's interesting when we project onto other people, their expectations. I'm being kind of tongue in cheek about it, but in all seriousness, like, No YouTube channel, no podcast is supposed to give you all the answers.

• 2:45:49Speaker 01

  You're supposed to create a composite of the things that that are meaningful for you and focus on one more than the other. Maybe a couple, two or three different things. I only listened to about four or five different podcasts total. But man, they've taught me so much.

• 2:46:02Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. What you just pointed out that this guy loves rock and roll and he's talking about it right now. I mean, bro, I'll sit around, people ask me a question about leadership, I'm freaking gone. Like I'm just talking about it forever. Or somebody wants to ask me about some military thing. It's like, okay, well, you want to talk about that? Let's go. And you and I were having a conversation the other day and you were mentioning this, uh, I think it's Bill, Bill Gurley gave this talk, running down a dream and, and he's basically saying like, if you're not totally into this thing that you want to get into, someone's going to outwork you because I don't consider recording a podcast and reading a book to prepare for a podcast. I don't consider it work.

• 2:46:45Jocko Willink?

  I'm doing it because I want to do it. So if you're out there and you're like, well, I want to make a podcast and I want to talk about stuff too. And, and it's work for you, I'm going to beat you. And if that guy that loves rock and roll so much, bro, I guarantee he started that thing with, he, he was going to do it regardless. And I don't know the particular podcast or who sponsored him and that stuff, but I guarantee he was like, I'm doing this podcast and it doesn't matter what's happening. I'm doing this podcast about the great, greatest hundred rock and roll songs of all time. Boom. That's what I'm doing. And probably because of that passion, he made it and then probably it became successful. But no matter what you're doing, if you're not a hundred percent into it and you don't love it and it's not,

• 2:47:27Jocko Willink?

  and it's not your true vocation, it's going to be problematic. It's going to be rough.

• 2:47:32Speaker 01

  I mean, one of the amazing things about becoming friends with Tim Armstrong is that, you know, he, he has, he had Operation Ivy Rancid, Transplants with Travis Barker and Rob Astin. It's amazing band. A lot of people hear Travis and they think blank, but I always think Aquabats. Travis, he's going to laugh at that one. Aquabats. And then I think Transplants. Amazing mashup of like punk rock and some hip hop tones and some hardcore stuff too. Anyway, Tim, like this is a guy who's written songs.

• 2:48:01Jocko Willink?

  I'm over here on the old firm casuals. That's my, that's my.

• 2:48:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, Lars. Yeah. Well, I'm a huge Lars and the Bastards fan. Huge. I mean, like, don't get me started. But.

• 2:48:12Speaker 01

  The, you know, the amazing thing is like, you know, and seeing how Tim works and he's written, helped, you know, a ton of pop male and female songwriters and he's, you know, all this. But he, you know, he, he gets up and sometimes in the middle of the night and paints. Then he'll go back to sleep. I know this. Sorry, Tim, I'm sharing a little bit of this, but I think it's so valuable for people to hear. And he doesn't really do front facing media anymore, but I'd love to get him on my podcast. But he does, then he'll get up and he, you know, he works out, he's super fit, does, does his workouts. But he also, he writes music every day. And for a while during the pandemic, he did this Tim Timebomb series where they were putting out a song a day. I think him and Kevin Bavone from The Interrupters, like, I think that's who he did it with, like every day.

• 2:48:56Speaker 01

  So he's writing every single day. Guy's always got a guitar, picking on your guitar, always. He's got his studio. It's like, he's constantly helping artists develop stuff. And he's like, either painting or writing music or working out. Or he's got a, like a great situation socially, personally, like he's, he's like always in touch with his friends. He takes care of himself. He takes care of people. Like, but he's, he's 10 years older than me. Okay. So he's 58. Every single day he's writing music. I'm like, is there every day where you don't? He's like, no, like every day, constantly, constantly. And so like, there's no stopping him. He's like a tank. You can't compete. He just, you can't compete and, and he's, and he's giving and he loves it and you can just feel it. And you ask him any question about anything with music and he's just like, like he'll talk about guitars.

• 2:49:41Speaker 01

  I know I can't play any music. He'll talk about guitars for hours and hours. Like he's just, the fire is there. And he's aligned with it. And there's a kid who was basically like sparing for change, playing guitar on Telegraph Avenue in front of Blondie's Pizza. I think he worked there for a little bit too, was hanging out at Gilman Street. And there's that great line in Journey to the End of the East Bay, like, what you gonna do when everybody goes on without you? And that resonated with me over the years because all my skateboard friends kind of went up and forward. I was kind of lost in that time. Like, what are you gonna do when like other people find their vocation? I don't want to inspire any fear in anybody, but it's like, he found it. He was like, this is what I'm good at. And this is the thing I love. But good at meant like good at doing it all the time.

• 2:50:23Speaker 01

  And he just went, um, and it's, at least to me, it's one of the more beautiful stories in music because he's also outlived a lot of the people from, from that world. But he's just like, the number of creative things he's involved in, there was movies that they've done. There's all sorts of stuff. He's been, he's a character on the, on the X-Files sometimes. He plays trash, man. He's gonna be so, he's gonna be laughing or, or ready to kill me that I'm talking about this, but like, I just see him as like, one of, one of the many essences, although they're rare, of just pure creative energy. These are people that never stop creating. It's just in their soul, the same way that learning and sharing, like right now, I'll be really, like if I'm gonna be a little bit more, um, vulnerable, as it, as it were.

• 2:51:03Speaker 01

  You know, like, sure, anything that's happening to me in my life now, I'm taking in new information, learning. I didn't go talk to Hollis on accident. I want to know from a guy who's 85 years old, like, how do you make the best version of yourself? How do you do that? How do you do that with tools that maybe I haven't had access to? Clearly I've succeeded in some areas of my life. I've struggled in others. Lord knows, I've struggled like anyone else. And how, how do I like, take, how do I take in information, learn and do different? You know, anytime we see somebody doing something, we're just like, why? Just do it the other way. Like clearly people are rational. But sometimes there's some two plus two equals fives in their, in their unconscious mind. So how do you pull that stuff out? So I think like the evolution of somebody is, is interesting to me. Certainly I'm always trying to evolve, but just

• 2:51:49Speaker 01

  the desire to learn and take in information, make the changes, see what works and then share. That's my thing. You've got your thing. You've got your thing. And I think Tim's got his thing. Lars has his thing. I love when Lars posts about professional wrestling. Cause he loves professional wrestling. Rick Rubin watches 10 hours a week of professional wrestling. You know, he told me, he said, it's the only thing that's real because everyone agrees it's fake. He told me, he said, once I sent him something, it was really disturbing from the news. It's about somebody we know. So it's a while back. And he just wrote back, he texted, I'll never forget, I screenshot this, he said, It's all lies. Back to nature, the only truth. And I was like, what are you talking about? That sounds like a riddle wrapped in a, like, you know, in a myth with a, you know, he's like the Sphinx. What are you talking about?

• 2:52:33Speaker 01

  He's like, anytime we go back into nature, we're in touch with truth. Like, there's no negotiating. That's a fern, that's a tree. You're you, you're the, and that takes us to this place where we start again to kind of like ask, what's my essence in this bigger picture? When we're taking in all this stimulus, you know, that's when we get kind of overwhelmed and we start becoming reactive in little unconscious ways and we lose touch with ourself. I mean, I don't have a language for this yet, and I think Hollis goes the greatest distance towards putting a language, and I think you're on to this too now. We're kind of like, we're kind of pulling along this line underwater and trying to figure out, like, where does this go? But there's something, there's gotta be tools. And I think that sitting with oneself for 10, 15 minutes a day quietly and listening, there's gotta be something that allows us to go like, this is my unique gift.

• 2:53:17Speaker 01

  And I don't mean me, Andrew, I mean everybody. I do believe that everyone has a unique gift that there, that would better the world were they to lean into that gift. I absolutely do. It's just, it's a, it's a, it's not a fantasy. I believe it because Hollis said it and the psychologists have said it, and it's what makes us who we are. It's what makes us different than the other animals.

• 2:53:39Jocko Willink?

  And this sets me up for the last thing, and we've already been going almost three hours, so I don't want to drag this out too much. But the last thing, which is a good counter to that, which you and I were talking about the other day, and that is, as much as we're both sitting here saying, you gotta do the thing that you love, you also gotta do the things that you don't want to do.

• 2:54:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:54:01Jocko Willink?

  And you were talking about this kind of, I don't know if these are recent discoveries, but things that go on in your brain that are so beneficial, but they only occur when you're doing things that you don't want to do. Tell me about that.

• 2:54:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. To me, this is, you know, I, maybe it's because I've had a bunch of friends die. Okay. And again, I just like get in this like slightly kind of like abrasive mode where, you know, like. Talk shit about me all you want, but don't talk shit about my dog. Okay? Don't, don't talk shit about my dog and don't talk shit about my friends that are, that aren't here. That, that actually checked out. Don't. The John Icaubos, John, Johnny Ferrars, the, the, you know, Aaron King Currys, like those guys. Like other people, just don't like, just don't like come, come at me with anything, but not that. Cause like, that's just like a, a step too far. You, you understand this. Oh, fully. Okay. So.

• 2:55:02Speaker 01

  If ever there was a discovery in neuroscience that I think people should know about, and I mentioned those guys. And that theme, because I think every day, okay, bullet bus or cancer, like if I were going to be taken out today. Like what do I want to make sure is in the world? Okay. Cause when that bus comes or whatever, you know, that's it. Like sometimes that's it. So I think, okay, what, what's the, the discovery in the recent years that I think everyone needs to know about? I blabbed a lot about dopamine. I blabbed a lot. Okay. Get some sunlight, please. The anterior mid-singulate cortex is this brain region that I knew about. I teach neuroanatomy to medical students. Do it every January, did it this last January, do it next January, taught it for years.

• 2:55:46Speaker 01

  The anterior mid-singulate cortex, neuroscientists knew was there. They didn't know what it did. It's an area that gets inputs and outputs from a lot of different brain areas, like a hub. It gets inputs from the dopamine system, serotonin system, motor system. It's like interconnected with a ton of stuff. But a colleague of mine at Stanford, Joe Parvizi, is a neurosurgeon, is operating on a patient and stimulating different brain areas. And gets in and starts tickling neurons with an electrode in the anterior mid-singulate cortex. And the patient, and it turns out every patient where he does this. Says, I feel like there's a storm coming at me, but I'm going to go through it. Or I feel like something's about to happen, but I can lean into it. Okay. Interesting.

• 2:56:29Speaker 01

  Moves the electrode back a few millimeters, totally different picture. Okay. So this is super interesting. The anterior mid-singulate cortex increases in size when people take on hard challenges on a consistent basis. Decreases in size when they don't. It increases in size in successful dieters, exercisers, people taking on a new skill. It's maintaining size unlike in other people. It maintains size in a group of people called super agers. It's a bit of a misnomer because what are super agers? Super agers are people that maintain cognitive ability late into life. They're constantly learning, taking on new challenges. Okay, the summary that we now have is that the anterior mid-singulate cortex is a brain area that's highly plastic, that grows, that becomes active and that can actually grow

• 2:57:14Speaker 01

  under conditions where we lean into things that we don't want to do. So if you love working out, sorry. You love reps to failure. I love reps to failure. I came up training like under the Mike Mensah thing, although I add a few more sets and a bit more frequency, kind of Dorian age.

• 2:57:30Jocko Willink?

  You're wasting your time.

• 2:57:31Speaker 01

  And it worked, and it worked for me. It's like, it's what my body reacted best to, given my time constraints. And like, it's what worked best for me. Occasionally I do a little bit more volume, but that's what works for me to get stronger. So the anterior, so training that way isn't going to do it. But you send me out on a, like a five mile ruck on a day with like just this amount of water. That sucks. Might even be dangerous, but probably survive if it's not too hot. If it sucks and you do it anyway, your anterior mid-singulate cortex gets bigger and it transfers to other aspects of life. And this is something that I think we've missed in the do hard things thing is we missed that the hard to you, hard to you, it's not sufficient to just do something that other people think is hard.

• 2:58:12Speaker 01

  If you love getting in the cold plunge, like it's not doing as much for your anterior mid-singulate cortex as if you hate getting in that thing. So I think it's beautiful. Like, I think it's beautiful that neuroscience discovered this. I do feel like it landed on my lap to tell everybody about it. I'm going to blab about it until I, you know, until they tell me to stop or they stop me or give me a tracheotomy and then I'll probably just be like, you're missing the cortex. But the point being that this thing does not care about the stuff you want to do that's hard. You know, if you love grinding reps to failure, you'll benefit. Clearly there's benefits to that exercise, but it's, it's the stuff you hate. It's if you're a talkative person, you want to be right and you sit down and you, you're

• 2:58:54Speaker 01

  going to do the, okay, I got to listen for 97% of the conversation. It's that, that's where the growth is. And the great news is this area is so interconnected that it's clear that it carries over to other types of behavior so that you can tackle other things that you would otherwise avoid. Then the last point is that this thing about the super agers is not trivial. It very well may be that the brain is. Paying attention to our efforts to absorb new information and grow itself. And the brain, of course, controls the body. We know that. The body talks back to the brain, but the brain largely controls the body. And then there's some interesting data based on the longevity stuff. And here, I'm not talking about living to be 200. I think genetic limit for aging is probably 120.

• 2:59:35Speaker 01

  And then there's variability in there depending on genetics and lifestyle, et cetera. But what ends up happening, it seems, is that this brain area is also related to the will to live. The desire to keep pushing. And, you know, if ever there were an appropriate place to talk about this, it would be here. Because I think when I hear about buds, or when I take Costello out to Coronado sometimes and he'd run around, I'd see guys out there doing their thing. Like, clearly, they're trying to find their, you know, who's gonna ring the bell. They're trying to find the people that can do, can learn to do the thing they hate anyway. And I think I got a few things wrong early days of the podcast.

• 3:00:16Speaker 01

  Not scientifically wrong, but I put so much emphasis on, on learning to make the effort the reward, which it can happen. But what we missed out on is that, like, sometimes the effort's supposed to suck. And maybe, probably, and based on these data on the intermedicinal cortex, certainly, when the effort sucks, you're really benefiting. So I keep that in mind a lot, and it scares me and I hate it. And I guess that's exactly the point.

• 3:00:47Jocko Willink?

  Well, there you go. That's a good bookend. Because we talk about doing what you want to do and doing what you love to do, but you've still got to do things you don't want to do. Probably a pretty good place to wrap. Echo Charles?

• 3:00:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, sorry.

• 3:01:00Jocko Willink?

  You got any questions?

• 3:01:00Speaker 02

  We're not wrapping yet.

• 3:01:01Jocko Willink?

  Okay, well, I figured you had some questions over here.

• 3:01:04Speaker 02

  Uh, wait, wait, wait. So you, we didn't go into the neurotic part of it. So you, we were talking about OCD, but then what, so then what's neurotic then? Because I thought neurotic, I guess I was getting them kind of.

• 3:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, this is kind of fun because the word neurotic actually used to be what the Freudian and Jungian analysts would consider healthy. They said the best you could be was neurotic. And what you want to avoid is being psychotic. That's the kind of old school language. Keep in mind, what we think of as neurotic now, they might have thought was different. Maybe just like of the neurons or something. I don't know.

• 3:01:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, neurotic people as a stereotype are people that like are very effusive and kind of like can't can't be satisfied by anything. There's always some underlying dissatisfaction, but we have to be careful because that itch is what drives us. And sometimes someone can be really neurotic but quiet. I work with a guy who likes to tell me, he goes, yeah, I'm like a I'm like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. And I'm like, you're the calmest dude I know. He's like, yeah, I'm stressed all the time. So people, people hide it well. People hide it well. So I don't have a lot to say about it, except that I think neurotic people and people that are just anxious in general.

• 3:02:14Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm with Jocko on this one. Do more. Tire yourself out. Like, I mean, there's some dogs that are just like tail always going. They need a lot of running. And then there are the Costellos that were just like super chill and like economy of effort is the name of the game.

• 3:02:29Speaker 02

  So for example, so I know a guy, we went over to his house for Christmas. It was me, my friend, the kids. So there, they had a Christmas tree. The ornaments were on the Christmas tree. It wasn't the fragile kind ornaments. It was just like regular ornaments. And one of the kids was over there by the Christmas tree, like kind of pawing at one of the ornaments. And the guy didn't know the kid. It was the first time, you know, he had been introduced to the kid. And the dad, they were just kind of guests at the house. And he was like, you could tell he was really bothered about the kid almost, I don't know, disrupting the ornaments or whatever, maybe, I don't know, I don't think they could break, but he was just like, he's like, hey, hey, hey. You know, almost like he lost control of himself because of that scenario. And I was like,

• 3:03:14Speaker 01

  Does he have kids of his own?

• 3:03:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:03:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds like, like, having had kids living with me before, it's, it's, it's a, you just have to embrace that, like, stuff's gonna get dirty, stuff's gonna get broken. Embrace the wildness. Yeah, it's like a, it's like a punk rock.

• 3:03:29Speaker 02

  I thought, I thought at that moment, I was like, okay, because it had nothing to do with me. It wasn't my kid, it wasn't my ornament. I don't care. I'm an observer, you know? But I was like, oh, that guy seems a bit neurotic because that doesn't move me either way, even if it was my ornament.

• 3:03:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:03:43Speaker 02

  You know, is he, is he neurotic?

• 3:03:45Speaker 01

  He's uptight.

• 3:03:46Speaker 02

  Or just uptight. Okay, so uptight is like the mild.

• 3:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, one thing we know for sure is trying to, you know, control the behavior of others or, you know, or get them, gosh, like, Life's gotta be pretty challenging for that guy.

• 3:04:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, dog just day to day kind.

• 3:04:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know that.

• 3:04:04Speaker 02

  He's not a happy camper, bro.

• 3:04:06Speaker 01

  No, that's, I mean, the world is, the world, the world's full of havoc and like, stuff isn't aligned and you know, like, you know, like, you know, that kind of thing. I mean, some people have the counting obsession thing, you know. But yeah, that sounds like he's uptight. I don't know that we could diagnose him, but I'm, I'm calling him uptight.

• 3:04:25Speaker 02

  Uptight.

• 3:04:25Speaker 01

  A little uptight, yeah.

• 3:04:27Speaker 02

  So that's like the, what, the street version of neuroses, neuroses?

• 3:04:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, nowadays people are using these terms like neurotic and narcissist and like, I mean, all these accounts on Instagram, like your people calling each other names is like, people have given themselves like the authority use DSM diagnoses. I mean, it's kind of wild. Then again, I'm a guy who talks about dopamine and serotonin, but those are real things, right? That, you know, exist in all of us. I mean, I think um, the clinical definitions of these things become really important. We have to be careful because we will erode that the like importance of, of like real psychological diagnosis. We're like, you're obsessed, you're OCD or someone's calling them like, well, you're, you're whatever. Like, you know, I think we have to be very careful about not drifting into that.

• 3:05:11Speaker 02

  Kind of like the word literally nowadays, right? Cause people are like, oh yeah, no, literally now means like just very much so, not like for real. You know, like the word literally has become not literally.

• 3:05:25Speaker 01

  Well, the internet's a free, largely a free, open resource for people to declare themselves, whatever. A few years back, I won't say what platform, I was contacted because there was discussion about only certain accounts being able to talk about things from any kind of diagnostic labels or health labels. And I think there was just so much pushback because you know, we, we put great value on degrees and obviously I'm degreed, so I put some value on it. But then of course, we know that there's a lot of great information like in the. Health sector, like especially exercise physiology and stuff that comes from outside of the standard practices. Like I'm a big fan of knees over toes guy Ben Patrick. And you know, some people are like, well, that doesn't fit with what the like orthopedic surgeon's

• 3:06:09Speaker 01

  saying like, but then everyone goes, well, he's the guy doing the, you know, the, the standing still to dunk dunk the basketball and do a back bend. I know Ben, he's awesome. And like, and he's very generous with information. And kind of like, well, you look at the orthopedic surgeon and he looks like he needs to take a few laps. And then you look at Ben and you're like, he's, his knees look pretty good. So, so I think, you know, we have to, I don't know, I, I'm a

• 3:06:30Jocko Willink?

  And Derek, more plates, more dates, doesn't have any kind of degree, does he?

• 3:06:34Speaker 01

  He, I mean, has a college degree in something else, but he's, but he's so, so knowledgeable about the practical applications and things. And he reads papers very well. Like it's, it's a real skill to extract the best of papers. And he's, he's extremely knowledgeable, very thoughtful. And, um, and again, a person like he took what he loved and put it out there for the greater good. You know, he's done a lot of harm reduction. I also think he's just really, really smart. Like I'm pretty good at spotting intelligence. He's really smart. And, um, it comes through.

• 3:07:06Jocko Willink?

  Yeah. And to your point, he's not a guy that, he didn't go to school for it. Neither did Ben from knees over toes. So those are two guys that through experience and research and personal knowledge, they've can put out really good information that can be really helpful to people.

• 3:07:22Speaker 01

  And then there's this

• 3:07:23Jocko Willink?

  Isn't that kind of offensive to some people?

• 3:07:25Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. They, they hate it.

• 3:07:26Jocko Willink?

  Like that's gotta drive some people crazy.

• 3:07:28Speaker 01

  Cause it means they would have to go do something. They'd have to activate their mid

• 3:07:30Jocko Willink?

  Did anybody, does anyone get mad at you for validating these freaking charlatans that are out there?

• 3:07:37Speaker 01

  Sure. Sure. But I'm just gonna say like, look at the results. They speak for themselves. Also, I've been working out since I was 16 and I also been running since I was in high school. And so

• 3:07:46Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you actually have dual degrees. You also have a degree in bro science.

• 3:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and you know, it's interesting because, um, and I've, I've had plenty of training partners that were women that were they, and they kick butt and they, and they, they, yes, there are unique needs that people have. I mean, one person I'd like to mention, I know that we're both friends with her, but also because she represents the combination of a number of different things. Medical doctor, so MD also.

• 3:08:14Speaker 01

  Very good teacher and and information sharer as well as a practitioner who's clearly got her own health, not just worked out, but is really thriving is Gabrielle, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, right? Who knows a ton about nutrition as well. So the the space, the this health space in particular is starting to bring in people, they're already here and there, that are checking off multiple boxes. And I'm excited about the work she's doing, not just for women in particular, but also for men. I think she's getting a specialization in in urology. Her husband's urologist, they're open about the fact he's former team guy. So I mean, there's a lot that comes.

• 3:08:53Jocko Willink?

  I wanted to go down that she she worked in a freaking like a sane asylum.

• 3:08:57Speaker 01

  Did she? Oh, yeah.

• 3:08:58Jocko Willink?

  For a while as a psychologist. And I almost wanted to, I mean, we only talked about it for 20 minutes. But what's going on in there? Because you know, I've never met anyone that was worked in an actual like asylum. It was kind of crazy.

• 3:09:11Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I got to introduce you to somebody I'm close with who is a psychiatrist who spent a lot of time out at St. Quentin examining the files and and talking to the people of the the worst, gnarliest cases. I'll be in touch with them. I couldn't bear to hear the stories. I'm not.

• 3:09:25Jocko Willink?

  I'll have him on the podcast. That'd be interesting.

• 3:09:27Speaker 01

  Be great. Yeah, he's he's impressive. But yeah, I mean, I've I've caught caught some stuff for it. But you know, yeah, I think Ben's great. And and I think there are others that are, you know, who are degreed, like Ben Bruno Training is a friend of mine. He's not the biggest guy, but he's super strong, like circus man strong, you know. So you look at what people can do. And it's not just physique. You look at what they can do performance wise, movement wise, the duck Kelly star at, and you just go, you go, okay, listen, like, these people obviously know what they're doing. And they're sometimes they're degreed, sometimes they're not. I think the the word expert nowadays is a is a complicated one. I think it's almost like, what does that mean? It depends on people's

• 3:10:10Speaker 01

  orientation, how they approach health and and science information. And listen, there's been a real fight for trying to make sure that only one source of information is considered valid. That fight has been lost. That fight's been lost. It's been lost because as long as

• 3:10:26Jocko Willink?

  Because COVID.

• 3:10:27Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh, you said it, not me. I think because I didn't say that. No, but I think the fight has been lost because people start to realize that.

• 3:10:37Speaker 01

  Diverse sources of information filtered through a logical mind where one can try things safely. And here I'm not talking about COVID. I want to be clear. I'm talking about kind of daily self-care. And I'm not saying that to be politically avoidant or anything like that. It's just like, it's just that that became such a tangle on the internet. And I think that when, when it comes to how to eat, how to exercise, is Ozempic, you know, the right thing for you or should you rely on something like? Those are conversations that I think like need to happen and are happening. And look, whatever this beast, the internet, social media is, that people thought could be just used to communicate one type of information. Well, I got news for you.

• 3:11:18Jocko Willink?

  Too late. So Ozempic is the fat loss thing, right?

• 3:11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of people are losing a lot of weight because it reduces appetite.

• 3:11:24Jocko Willink?

  And so, and so are people coming at that from both directions? Are some people saying it's good for you and some people saying it's bad for you?

• 3:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, and Ati has more to say about this. There can be some muscle loss in addition to fat loss. So people can, so people can offset that with some resistance training. So it's not good, not all good or all bad. It's clear that people are benefiting from it. It's very expensive. There's this question whether or not insurance will soon take care of it. It's on track to be, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars.

• 3:11:55Speaker 01

  The, the, the kind of polarization here is as follows, and I, I won't reveal my stance. I'll just tell you the way I understand it. And I'll probably get it only 80% right. That some people are positioning this as, hey, doesn't matter what you do, lifestyle or try and eat less. This is the only thing that works and there's, you know, people are genetically or metabolically stricken and they need to do this. Other people are saying, no, you don't need to do that. There's a bunch of lifestyle things you can do. And the answer is probably somewhere in the middle where you can imagine that it probably helps some people get to a lighter weight that then allows them to move around a bit more. And one would hope then they would resistance train and they would do cardiovascular training. But the way it's been positioned, kind of like sociopolitically, is that it's one versus the other.

• 3:12:39Speaker 01

  And that agency over one's health, mental health and physical health is the domain of one political camp and the other political camp is like, no, like we're, it's, it's, it's all about using.

• 3:12:52Speaker 01

  Certain treatments that are coming through pharma, but that's not real, right? But that's how the conversations on social media and the kind of media landscape would have you think about this. But of course, the league of reasonable people, as you point out, which makes up most people are gonna say, all right, let's say somebody's like 40 pounds overweight and they're really struggling. Like, maybe it's a good starter for them. Maybe it's a good place for them to drop a bunch of weight and then start exercising. You know, other people are gonna say, hey, listen, I never want to exercise, but I want to be healthier. Well, maybe that's the right thing for them. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna argue with them. But I do think that you can do a hell of a lot, we know this, with

• 3:13:31Speaker 01

  proper nutrition, with really tasty food, exercise and sunlight and sleep and taking good care of yourself. And the information's all out there for free. You just gotta tickle that intermedicilite cortex a bit, you know?

• 3:13:44Speaker 02

  So, what else? The word expert is kinda like the word world champion. Because you know how like, like me, I'm a grappling ex-world champion. Oh, actually, I did not even know that. I am, you coached me that day. Oh, you won the world championships? 2008. Yeah. But if it's not like what, recognized as a what, governing body? That was a small pond. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. Hey, but factually, factually, let's face it, I won the gold medal. You see what I'm saying?

• 3:14:13Speaker 01

  Well, you want your surgeon to be an M D, you know? Like, you want your lawyer to understand the law, right? I would hope. You want your SEAL Team operator to have made it through BUDs. You know, you want that, okay?

• 3:14:28Speaker 02

  But the word expert, though, you see what I'm saying? Like, when can we not use the word expert, even though, you know?

• 3:14:34Speaker 01

  Now, it's a free for all.

• 3:14:35Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 3:14:35Speaker 01

  It's a free for all.

• 3:14:36Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying, exactly.

• 3:14:37Speaker 01

  It's a free for all, and I think that, you know, the interweb is a complicated place, but it's also like stupidly simple at the same time. Because once you understand what you're looking at, that it's a borderline situation, and you realize that the goal is clicks and polarized things get clicks. Well, then, if you're a reasonable person, you're part of the league of reasonable people who want to access the right information, what it means is You're gonna have to look at information across the board, integrate, try, see what works for you, what doesn't work for you, and probably avoid the strong opinions at the extremes, like the outliers. That's my suggestion.

• 3:15:15Speaker 02

  Okay, so perfect. So my second to the last question. So to be part of the, but bear with me.

• 3:15:20Speaker 01

  I'm bearing.

• 3:15:22Speaker 02

  But if I want to be part of the league of reasonable people, what would be like one of the obvious criteria? Like, I would say, and I don't know, this is with 10 seconds of thought.

• 3:15:33Speaker 02

  I, if I lose my temper on the internet, I'm automatically disqualified.

• 3:15:38Speaker 01

  No, because the league of reasonable people understands that we're not supposed to judge people based on a state. You can potentially judge them on the basis of trait, but one state of mind, one, you know, assuming you don't do something like horrific, right? That if you can recognize, like, oh, I was in a state of mind at that time, and it just doesn't faithfully represent who I am and the people around me know me to be, then we'll be like, you're absolutely still in the league of reasonable people.

• 3:16:09Speaker 02

  What if I do that three times?

• 3:16:11Speaker 01

  Well, then we, then the people close to you might say, hey, like, listen, you might need some help. I mean, if you've ever been online and you have a channel, you're familiar with this, I'm sure. You get someone who's just like adoring you, adoring you, adoring you, then tells you they're gonna stop following you and then start sending attack stuff. You're probably looking at somebody who is bipolar. Then they disappear, then they come back, like, you're probably, remember, a lot of times people are drunk when they're sending these messages. You'll forget, like, you know, like, we're not good at ascribing state of mind in other people. So no, you're absolutely in the league of reasonable people. Why? Because you asked the question, which means that you're a reasonable person.

• 3:16:46Speaker 02

  Oh, I was more asking for a friend, but, or more of a hypothetical, if you will. Because, look, I would imagine, look, I don't want to make it a big thing, you know, because obviously it's still hypothetical, but I feel like after about 10. Infractions, infractions, drunk or not drunk, after a while you're like, bro, is this guy want to be part of the league or not?

• 3:17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe penalty box at that point. I mean, you know, like, yeah, I mean, let's, uh, what would it be in the military? Like enough safety violations.

• 3:17:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, review board or something.

• 3:17:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:17:14Speaker 02

  I feel the same way.

• 3:17:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. All right.

• 3:17:16Jocko Willink?

  Maybe put some kind of restraints on your.

• 3:17:18Speaker 02

  Something, you know, at least something, something written down.

• 3:17:21Speaker 01

  Again, let's not normalize, let's not authenticate unethical behavior just because it's frequent. People drunk drive all the time, but we all know it's a terrible thing to do. So don't do it. But we also don't want to pathologize by labeling people to the point where they think, oh, if they drunk drive, God forbid, please don't. But if they do, that somehow they are incapable of change, especially if they still have a driver's license.

• 3:17:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I dig it. What if they do it 10 times in a row? I don't know, bro.

• 3:17:54Jocko Willink?

  They're going to jail, bro. They're out of the league.

• 3:17:55Speaker 02

  Okay. All right. Okay. Last, last question. You, you use this expression, which I just kind of real casually immune privileged. The brain is immune privileged. What does that mean? Immune privileged?

• 3:18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you have two immune systems. One is called the innate immune system. This is the one that like, let's say you get a splinter, you get some pus around it, some swelling. There's not really antibodies to a splinter. It's just that the, um, your innate immune system going, hey, there's a foreign body in here. That's not me. The, the body is so good at recognizing not of me. And then creating a bunch of responses, trying to isolate it, et cetera. Then you have the adaptive immune system, which comes along and starts making antibodies. So let's say you have a bacteria or virus gets into you. At first, the innate immune system, like in the first, you know, 24 to, you know, 72 hours is going to be like, hey, let's just like contain this thing somehow. Or launch a, like, it might make you want to sleep if it's a virus like it does. But then comes the second wave where the adaptive immune system, which is amazing, we have a whole discussion about this.

• 3:18:52Speaker 01

  Basically sends out these, like these, these cells that go, oh, what is this thing? And then they go, what's on the surface of it? What's the shape of this thing? Oh, wow. Okay. And then they go back and the body actually manufactures antibodies that then can go and stick to the surface of this thing to make sure that it can't either spread, spread and or go. Attach itself to other parts of the body. That is just like amazing. And then there's like another wave where it's like an even more specific antibody. So the idea was that the brain is immune privileged, that there's no antibodies, innate or adaptive immune system in the brain, or certainly not no adaptive immune system. And Dr. Carla Schatz, who coined the term fire together, wire together, brilliant neurobiologist at Stanford now, has been at

• 3:19:37Speaker 01

  Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, all those places. She was the one that said, well, let's just like test this idea. Maybe they're, the brain actually does have an immune system and low and behold, has immune system, boom, there's an entire field born of that, critical field for treatment of brain cancers, for treatment of brain plasticity, or and on and on.

• 3:19:55Speaker 02

  So immune privileged is essentially, it has the privilege of having an immune system cracking.

• 3:20:00Speaker 01

  Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, but the word immune privilege, we're meant to refer to that. It's not, there's no immune system in the brain. Now we know that, nope, the brain is not privileged, like every other organ in the body. It is subject to the workings of the immune system.

• 3:20:13Speaker 02

  Okay, so it's kind of like.

• 3:20:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's sort of like the super agers thing. I know scientists are love getting things backwards, just confuse people and keep it secret so we can talk about it, pretend we know more than other people. I'm just kidding, just kidding. Just kidding. They'll clip the just kidding, someone take it off the internet, it'll be just kidding.

• 3:20:31Speaker 02

  Freaking Hubes over here, going hard.

• 3:20:33Speaker 01

  There were worse nicknames, but I'll tell you those later.

• 3:20:35Speaker 02

  Oh, so, okay, so what is, so there is no immune privileged scenario in the body? Or there is?

• 3:20:41Speaker 01

  Uh, there may be a few, few areas, but no, pretty much your entire body is subject to immune function.

• 3:20:47Speaker 02

  Like your hair, maybe?

• 3:20:49Speaker 01

  Uh, the, the niche of the, of the stem, the hair follicle has stem cells in there. No, there's immune system stuff going on in there, too.

• 3:20:58Speaker 02

  All good then. All right, cool. That's all I got. I was gonna ask about track and field. What are we like, 100 meter dash?

• 3:21:03Speaker 01

  No, man, I go up to Hayward, I went for the Worlds, I go for the track and field qualifiers, whenever, I only didn't go during COVID, because it wasn't open. The 5000, 12 laps, Steve Prefontaine, talk about a hard race. He died right in drunk driving thing, but his thing was he was calling it, he was gonna do 12 60 second laps. That the 5000 falls on the last day, I'm gonna be up there, we already got seats, I'm gonna, you guys should come up. Um, I invite Cam, like I, I, I wanna be there to watch the 5000. That's just a brutal, brutal race. I mean, think about three mile, three mile sprint. Yeah, it looks like a sprint to me anyway. I think in the Olympics, they should have like a very skilled recreational swimmer go back and forth next to the rest of them.

• 3:21:47Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, yeah, to compare, right?

• 3:21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, or a very, for Jiu Jitsu wouldn't make any sense, but like a skateboarding.

• 3:21:53Jocko Willink?

  Swimmer, I mean, have you ever like walked along the pool and someone's a, a high caliber swimmer like it's a, they're, they're hauling.

• 3:22:00Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, you're a swimmer, cuz you're a.

• 3:22:02Jocko Willink?

  You wouldn't even be, like the recreational swimmer wouldn't be in the game, he wouldn't be in the camera. Right, like he would just be back there.

• 3:22:09Speaker 01

  He'd be fishing, they'd be on to the next event.

• 3:22:10Jocko Willink?

  They'd be on the next event.

• 3:22:11Speaker 01

  Next day they're like.

• 3:22:12Jocko Willink?

  Just freaking whatever.

• 3:22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, those, those guys and gals are missiles in the water. You're probably a pretty good swimmer despite your thickness, your, dude, the earlier I saw you, gave you a dap and a hug and I was like, man, like you and you and Rogan, like whenever I know, I'm like, damn, you guys are like, turn sides like this, it's crazy. Like, is, is that Jiu Jitsu?

• 3:22:30Jocko Willink?

  Well, Jiu Jitsu is definitely part of it, but there's guys that are not, you know, big.

• 3:22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:22:36Jocko Willink?

  And they're sick at Jiu Jitsu. There's guys that, there, there's guys that feel kinda like noodly on the side, they're real good. You gotta watch out for those dudes a little bit, cuz they're gonna get a little bit crazy with their flexibility.

• 3:22:47Speaker 01

  Who's that kid? I like his Instagram account, Mikey, is that his name?

• 3:22:49Jocko Willink?

  Mikey Musumetsu, yeah, he's.

• 3:22:51Speaker 01

  His Instagram account is amazing.

• 3:22:53Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, he's so freaking crazy flexible and he's, he's just really sick at Jiu Jitsu. Yeah, he's, he's amazing and a great guy, like a, just a super good hearted dude who fought against this, other guy, and the other guy wouldn't tap. I'll, I'll show you the video, you'll.

• 3:23:17Jocko Willink?

  His just ripping his, all of his ligaments are getting totally destroyed and the guy's not tapping and he doesn't tap. And Mikey afterwards was just kinda like, he was a little bit freaked out, you know?

• 3:23:28Speaker 01

  I bet.

• 3:23:29Jocko Willink?

  I mean.

• 3:23:29Speaker 01

  That's psycho.

• 3:23:30Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:23:31Speaker 01

  That's some Gigi Allen stuff right there. Only like 10 people are gonna know that joke.

• 3:23:38Jocko Willink?

  My friend got into a street fight and did an arm lock on someone and he said, he goes, you know, when you're trying to break a chicken bone? Off of the chicken and it like you press it and then it goes and then you go the other direction and you're just breaking all the ligaments? That's what, when you see this Mikey Musamechi doing it to this guy's leg and the guy's just not tapping.

• 3:24:01Speaker 01

  That's not adaptive.

• 3:24:03Jocko Willink?

  I was talking to Mike Perez the other day.

• 3:24:06Jocko Willink?

  ADCC just, just won ADCC, open class, he's 170 pounds. But he's like, talking about foot locks and knee locks. He's like, yeah, I'm not tapping. He goes, I've turned off that switch. Like, and he's been in tournaments where he's just got his ankle destroyed and just didn't tap and won. Because he just turned off that switch, yeah, I'm not tapping. So that to me, I mean, it's, it's a decision that you're gonna make and certainly when you watch the, the, the highest level of submission arts, submission grappling, ADCC, those guys, they will absolutely sacrifice their freaking tendons for a victory. It's crazy.

• 3:24:46Jocko Willink?

  And look, I know what it takes to recover from an ACL. So I've never had it, but I know like you're, you're out for a year. But these guys are going for the world championship? Doesn't matter. There, you can have the ACL. You can just take it. You can keep it.

• 3:25:00Speaker 01

  Well, some people, it's the body. Other people, it's the family. You know, you gotta be careful. You know, I know children of academics who are like really messed up because their parents were just like going for it all the time at work, you know, like, you know, like there's, you know, there's, it comes in different forms.

• 3:25:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. The sacrifice you're willing to make. It's pretty disturbing to watch someone get their ACL snapped and not tap.

• 3:25:25Speaker 01

  From the heart does not mean foolish, reckless abandon.

• 3:25:29Jocko Willink?

  Be smart. Uh, where can people find you? Hubermanlab.com is kind of the central place to find everything.

• 3:25:37Speaker 01

  We got links out to all the podcasts. Everything's zero cost. The search function there, you put in anything and take you to timestamps, AI, the Huberman Lab on all social platforms. Keep it simple. Yeah.

• 3:25:48Jocko Willink?

  Huberman Lab, you're out there. Um, let's see. We don't always want to work out. Now we know that we're going to work out anyways. When we work out, we're going to need some fuel. Let me send you to JacoFuel.com. Uh, you just had a, you just, you've been drinking a drink right here.

• 3:26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, and again, I don't get paid to say this. We don't have any deal, nothing like that. I, uh, I, my sources of caffeine are yerba mate, some coffee. And, but if I drink an energy drink, I'm gonna drink these cause I love them.

• 3:26:19Jocko Willink?

  And you got your specific yerba mate. What is it? So people want to get in there.

• 3:26:22Speaker 01

  Matina. And I have a relationship to them. Yeah. It's a zero sugar. We'll get you some.

• 3:26:28Jocko Willink?

  I have a relationship to Jocko Fuel. So we're kind of on an even.

• 3:26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, my dad's Argentina, as I mentioned, I grew up, you know, drinking mate out the gourd with, you know, the loose leaf. They sell a loose leaf. I, I helped them design a zero sugar, uh, cold brew one that I like a lot. It's like 150 milligrams of caffeine. It doesn't have the nootropics in it. So this is like, if I need that zip, the extra kick and, um, uh, I'll do one or two of these. I have to say, if I do one of these, cause I'm not that conditioned, I'm like, going.

• 3:26:53Jocko Willink?

  They're good. They're good.

• 3:26:55Speaker 01

  I'm going. This one's really good. I, I would not say that if, if I didn't really feel that. Um, and I love it. Yeah. So I hit the energy drinks usually before workout.

• 3:27:03Jocko Willink?

  Yep.

• 3:27:04Speaker 01

  Or a three and a half hour long Jocko podcast.

• 3:27:09Jocko Willink?

  So there you go. JacoFuel.com. Check that out. Also, OriginUSA.com. We got stuff made in America. A hundred percent. Rebelling against the world, bringing manufacturing back to America.

• 3:27:19Speaker 01

  So crazy.

• 3:27:20Jocko Willink?

  And we're making it happen. It's DIY. By the way, it's DIY. We're making it happen. Just, dude, we got this new workout gear. It's freaking legit.

• 3:27:31Speaker 01

  Is it jujitsu or?

• 3:27:32Jocko Willink?

  No, no, just just workout training gear and I'll, I'll, I'll get you some and you'll be freaking pumped. It's all made hundred percent in America. The fabric's made in America, sewn in America. So whatever you're doing, jujitsu, working out, jeans. Cause you need jeans. You can't go to the club in your gi, Echo Charles.

• 3:27:54Speaker 01

  In San Diego, that's probably a, probably a lot.

• 3:27:56Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, I'm sure they did.

• 3:27:58Speaker 01

  You're going in your gi, really? You know, when I was in the lab more doing experiments, it was Halloween. I just used to wear my lab coat and then the disco, it was kind of lame. I was working late. I had to still make the Halloween party.

• 3:28:11Jocko Willink?

  Yeah, you can't wear your gi out, Echo Charles, despite.

• 3:28:16Speaker 01

  The G and a G scenario?

• 3:28:17Jocko Willink?

  Despite the G and a G scenario.

• 3:28:20Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a long story.

• 3:28:21Jocko Willink?

  It's a long story and a good one. But you need jeans, boots. We got you covered. OriginUSA.com, bringing manufacturing back to America. Don't support. Communism. Don't support slave labor. Don't support companies that trash our environment. Which if you get stuff that's made overseas, they have no EPA, they have no rules and they just pollute and they ruin the, the earth. So don't put up with that. Don't put up with slave labor. OriginUSA.com, go check it out. Hey, also, Origin USA, check this out. We've got a. We do a jujitsu camp, right? It's in Maine. This year, we're doing a law enforcement.

• 3:29:04Jocko Willink?

  Jujitsu camp. It is August 27th through the 31st. So if you're in law enforcement or first responder or military and you want to get training that's focused on that environment, then check it out at OriginUSA.com. The LEO. The jujitsu camp's already sold out. The jujitsu camp itself sells out in like a matter of hours. So this is open for first responders, military, law enforcement. Check that out. ChocoStore.com. You can get cool t-shirts there, Echo Charles?

• 3:29:38Speaker 01

  Yes, represent discipline equals freedom. Cause it does, by the way, equal freedom. But yeah, you want to represent, boom, that's where you can get it. Good. All this other stuff. Uh, short locker, new design every month.

• 3:29:50Speaker 02

  Subscription scenario, people seem to like that. People still hitting me up for the sugar coated lies. Wait, wait, tell it to what is short, short locker? Shirt locker. Shirt locker. Play on words, Hurt Locker, it's a long story, but it's called the Shirt Locker. So basically you have a subscription. You get a new shirt with a discipline equals freedom design, but we go a little bit more free as far as the, uh, the creative.

• 3:30:12Jocko Willink?

  So you remember how you were talking about how people have it in them and they gotta get that creativity out. Well, Echo Charles got that. He freaking needs to get it out.

• 3:30:19Speaker 02

  I have my good shirt. Yeah, hell yeah. So we have a good, so an old shirt from the Shirt Locker, cause they're just like one month and then they're gone. See what I'm saying? But actually, when you join, you can get one from the past. So you're all good. If you're a member, whatever. But we have a good one, says good, but it's like in this, what, what would you call it? Caligrafi fancy, whatever.

• 3:30:38Jocko Willink?

  Cursive, cursive.

• 3:30:38Speaker 02

  Cursive, right? Looks like elegant, which is kinda not Jocko's jam or whatever, but that one's called good, high level problems. See what I'm saying?

• 3:30:46Jocko Willink?

  Yeah.

• 3:30:46Speaker 02

  And all that means is, hey, you can be in the gutter, that you can have problems, that you still gotta approach with that attitude. Or you can be freaking, you know, what do you call it? Top 1% type scenario.

• 3:30:56Jocko Willink?

  You can say, damn, I got a flat tire on my Mercedes AMG.

• 3:30:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, or the Uber Eats guys laid, or I don't know, whatever. These higher level, and you know, whatever. Problems, you still need the same attitude. That's what I'm saying. See what I'm saying? People seem to like that one. It's kinda relatable. Anyway. Like I said, it's a new design. People seem to like it. It's called the Shirt Locker. It's on JacoStore.com.

• 3:31:16Jocko Willink?

  Oh, so you're gonna need some steak. We're getting ready to go have some steak right now. And we're gonna have some primal beef or some Colorado, we're having both. We're cooking them both. Primal beef. Primalbeef.com, coloradycraftbeef.com. Best steak you can get. Go check those out. Subscribe to the podcast. jockounderground.com. Check that one out if you wanna get in there. We have YouTube channels. All of us have YouTube channels. So check out the YouTube channels. Psychological Warfare, Flipside Canvas, Dakota Meyer, making cool stuff to hang on your wall. You got a shirt that says good. You might wanna freaking, uh, uh, what's it called? A piece of art to hang on your wall. Says good. From Dakota Meyer, right? Can't go wrong. I've written a bunch of books about leadership. I've written a kid's book. You heard it today.

• 3:31:59Jocko Willink?

  We got a kid, we got a kid's movie coming out. It's actually, it's actually something Echo Charles. Four quadrant movie. Do you know what that is?

• 3:32:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:32:07Jocko Willink?

  Four quadrant movie. This is a movie that goes for the whole family. All quadrants are covered. I don't know what the four are, but it's obviously the kids. Yeah. Maybe the teens, maybe the parents and maybe even the grandparents. Love it. So four quadrant movie, that's what it's called. Yeah. So that's what we got coming. So it doesn't matter who you are in the fam. Yeah. You're still going to get something out of it. So check out the books. Also Echelon Front, we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Echelonfront.com. Check that out. A bunch of live events that we do for individuals, FTX Council Battlefield. We got the Women's Assembly happening September 11th through the 13th in San Antonio, Texas. We got the Nashville muster. We're at it right now when this is playing. Yeah.

• 3:32:50Jocko Willink?

  So that's sold out. Next one's in Dallas. So if you want to come to one of these events, they all sell out. So register, go to echelonfront.com. Also, we do consulting. So if you have a company, you need help with your leadership. You have need help with anything, it's going to get solved through leadership. So echelonfront.com, we have an online training academy as well. Extremeownership.com. Learn these principles. Virtually. We also have some charities that we support. So if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.

• 3:33:29Jocko Willink?

  She's got an amazing charity organization. She helps out veterans with health support that the VA is not going to pay for. So if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org. Also, HeroesAndHorses.org. Micah Fink up in the mountains right now. Last report, he just whittled a small stick and defended him and his family from an onslaught of grizzly bears in the mountains of Montana. Then he takes veterans up to the mountains where they can, where they can. Get lost and get found. It's an awesome program. Jimmy May has also got an organization,

• 3:34:11Jocko Willink?

  beyondthebrotherhood.org. So there you go. We're all on the interwebs, at Huberman Lab, at Jocko Willink, at Echo Charles. Just watch out for the algorithm, because there's a freaking psycho right now, uh, sitting there, two of them, an engineer, a software engineer, and a psychologist, and they're trying to figure out how to get you to stare at that screen longer. Make that algorithm. They carved it up just for you, putting little taunting little, little things that you love. They know what you like. They can tell how long you looked at that post half an hour ago. They know that you looked at it for an extra point four seconds. They're gonna throw another one at you, and then they'll throw another one at you, and they get it honed until you're just addicted, and you're wasting your life. Just don't let that happen. Watch out for the algorithm.

• 3:34:57Jocko Willink?

  Thanks, once again, Andrew, for joining us. Any closing thoughts for us?

• 3:35:01Speaker 01

  Just thanks so much for having me here. Thanks for giving me a venue to talk about some fun things, some harder things, you know, and let me show up from the heart, so I'm doing, and, um, you know, I always appreciate you and you both, and people tuning in, it really, um, again, it's an honor and a privilege, so, um, just very grateful.

• 3:35:24Jocko Willink?

  Right on, man. Well, thanks for what you do. Thanks for getting the word out there, and thanks for helping people become better people. Also, we want to thank our men and women in uniform around the world, holding the line right now and protecting our freedom and our way of life. We couldn't do what we're doing without you doing what you're doing, so thank you from our hearts for getting out there and holding the line. Also, thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, Border Patrol, Secret Service, all other first responders. Thanks for doing what you do to keep us safe here at home, and to everyone else out there. Got one more quote for you, from James Jones'

• 3:36:08Jocko Willink?

  book, From Here to Eternity. Quote, "You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water, until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand.

• 3:36:28Jocko Willink?

  Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom."

• 3:36:35Jocko Willink?

  And after you had been down inside pain awhile, you found that like with cold water, it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around trying to get up your nerve.

• 3:36:55Jocko Willink?

  And that's it. It's a good call. It's a good call with life. Lean into the pain. Don't draw back away from it. It won't be as bad as you thought, and in fact, it will make you better.

• 3:37:09Jocko Willink?

  So go get after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Andrew and Echo and Jocko. Out.